


No Game For Old Men - Book One

by Ryk_Oakwine



Series: No Game For Old Men [1]
Category: Sekirei
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dare to tell a new story, Embedded Images, F/F, F/M, Feels, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Multi, My alien sex slave is hotter than your alien sex slave, Non-Canon Relationship, Non-Canon Storyline, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Bond, Psychic Sex, Real People in Anime Situations, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 14:31:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 45,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8493505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryk_Oakwine/pseuds/Ryk_Oakwine
Summary: Not all Ashikabi are young men with blank slate lives like Sahashi Minato. Some have families, careers, friends, relationships. For most, the Sekirei Plan is a disaster that wrecks the lives of Ashikabi and Sekirei alike. This is the story of Sekirei 37, Madoka and all the others who weren't the special privileged favorites of the Gods and the Canon Author.





	1. NGFOM 1.1 - Freedom

**Author's Note:**

> Foreward/Author's Note to the Reader:
> 
> (Extended notes are at the end of this chapter. The tl;dr version is here.)
> 
> 1\. Story is Rated Mature. For actual reasons, not "just in case".
> 
> 2\. This story uses the anime as canon and ignores most of the manga.
> 
> 3\. This story calls the city of the story's setting "Shin Tokyo". It's just Tokyo, roll with it.
> 
> Thanks for giving Madoka's story a chance. Several readers have mentioned that by chapter 3 it really takes off, so I ask readers to consider giving it three chapters before making up your mind for certain.

** **

**No Game For Old Men**

NGFOM 1.1 – Freedom

 

 

* * *

 

_{Farsense or other Metafaculties}_

_[Memories]_

_"Internal dialogue."_

Bonus Material:  Note, some of the pics and other bonus material at the Tumblr could be considered rather "spoilery" so the author strongly recommends reading all of Book One (that's chapters 1-4) before perusing the bonus material! So, that warning made, know that pics (NSFW) and other bonus stuff (like the NGFOM Google Map) for Book One have been posted on the author's Tumblr, [oakwinefanfic.tumblr.com](http://oakwinefanfic.tumblr.com/post/118650021134/no-game-for-old-men-book-one-ch-1-intro-images) Warning: Rated R material at the tumblr site, as makes sense for material inspired by a rated R story.

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Friday, December 6th, 2019  
Shin Tokyo, Japan

She watched the gentle fall of snowflakes through the side-window of the automated, sleek, black MBI mini-bus; her blue eyes were fixed on the beautiful scene passing by. Something about the combination of the most basic of natural events - weather - and the hyper-modern backdrop of Shin Tokyo was captivating.

It did not snow often in Shin Tokyo in early December. The uncommon event had drawn many of the city's inhabitants out into the late evening chill, bundled up in colorful jackets, wrapped about with woolen scarves, mittens and gloves found at the bottom of dresser drawers and pulled onto chilled hands. The cold air was clean and crisp, making the commercial district of Ginza's many lights shine and sparkle. Nighttime in the towering urban sprawl of Shin Tokyo was always bright and busy; the enormous city never really slept.

Madoka, Sekirei number 37, took it all in as MBI's black mini-bus made its way through the traffic of the commercial district on its way to wherever Madoka was to start the rest of her life.

"Number 37, you are the fifth Sekirei to be released into the city to begin the search for their destined Ashikabi…"

The video briefing droned on via the monitor hanging from the roof of the automated vehicle. Madoka ignored it. Tedious boring lectures and briefings were old news by now to anyone who had been raised in MBI's top-secret Sekirei Labs. For the last several months the only company she'd had were these lectures. She wanted to get _away_ from MBI and their mind-numbing obsession with "fight, fight, fight" and her finding her Ashikabi.

Before she left the top-secret MBI Sekirei Labs - where she and all of her fellow Sekirei had spent their entire lives - the MBI Administrators had arranged for whatever clothing she wanted; no request was too outlandish or difficult. She knew some of her sisters would be putting custom clothiers in the city to some very creative work over the next few months.

For herself she selected normal western style clothing; the sort of clothes any visiting American girl might wear around the city in winter. With her thick blonde hair, blue eyes, and curvaceous body Madoka wasn't going to pass as Japanese anyway. Therefore, tight stylishly faded designer blue jeans, black-leather high-heeled boots, and a puffy pink coat with a broad hood to cover her head was the outfit she settled on after much internal debate.

At first, when told they would arrange for any clothing she wanted, she had thought of outlandish "awesome" outfits that would show off her eleven-on-a-scale-of-ten body, but she recalled her best friend's advice from a year ago, when they all were first told of the details of MBI's "Sekirei Plan". Number 44, Yosuga - who had been Madoka's best friend all the years they were together in the labs - quietly pointed out to Madoka that the best plan would be to blend in and not stand out if they were all going to be released into the city population. A lot of her sisters would be trying to draw attention so as to more easily find their Ashikabi, their destined mate and life-long-loves.

Yosuga insisted that finding the first male who would have his head turned by bouncing boobs and bare skin would result in a poor selection of a lifelong mate.

Yosu-chan was pretty smart about things like that. And Madoka knew that she herself was not.

"Over the next five months - in the First Phase of the Sekirei Plan - three to five of your competitors will be released into Shin Tokyo each week to seek out the best Ashikabi available…"

So Madoka had resisted the impulse that so many of her fellow Sekirei were giving into. Western style clothes it was, and looking out at the cold snowy night from the back of the mini-bus Madoka blessed her friend and the good advice she had given. Tromping about on a snowy night wearing spandex and latex just did not sound like it would be much fun. Sure, she would look one-hundred percent awesome, but brrrr!

Madoka searched around in the pink and white vinyl "Nyan Nyan" purse in which she had put her MBI Platinum Card and necessities like her hair brush, make up, a few of her favorite earrings from her dorm. They were not allowed to carry much out of the MBI Sekirei Dorms, but she had been assured the unlimited MBI Platinum Card she was issued would be more than adequate to provide for all the necessities that life in Shin Tokyo demanded.

Madoka was not exactly sure what those "necessities" were, but it could not be too complicated. Find a place to live, get food and, ah… well, whatever else there was she needed. The MBI Administrators of the Sekirei Plan were vague in the briefing. There hadn't been any real training on what they were supposed to do once released, other than find their Ashikabi and then seek out other Sekirei and defeat them in battle.

"Your MBI Platinum Card operates as any commercial bank's debit card would operate. You can use it to purchase products and services at many businesses in the Shin Tokyo prefecture. As much of Japan still operates on a cash economy, each day you can use your card to withdraw…"

Finding a black ink pen in her purse Madoka clicked it then began absently doodling designs on the pale blue denim of her jeans.

Defeat them in battle. "Fight, Fight, Fight until only one remains!" as Professor Hiroto Minaka put it. Over and over and over again. The last year was full of nothing but "Fight, Fight, Fight until only one remains" and "Find your Ashikabi" it seemed. She heard it in her sleep even.

Madoka had become sick and tired of it months ago and was not any more enthusiastic about it today. There was no way she could ever defeat even the weakest of her fellow Sekirei in any kind of battle anyway. Unless they dueled via wet t-shirt contest, perhaps.

Make no mistake, _if_ Madoka _could_ beat down her Sekirei sisters and stand atop a pile of their bodies to rule over all she saw, she would.

But that was simply never going to happen.

"The MBI Platinum Card has no limit in order to provide for your own and your Ashikabi's needs. This is so that you can focus on the tournament…"

If there was one lesson that living in the communal dormitories of the Sekirei Labs had taught her it was that she was at the absolute bottom of the ranking list when it came to Sekirei Badassery. Madoka could not beat the Sekirei who was the _next_ weakest on the list, and that was a Sekirei who could only _cry_ as her "super power". Most of her sister Sekirei could punch holes in concrete walls, leap fifty meters at a time, and outrun bullet trains. Madoka could not do any of that; all she could do was heal minor injuries, if she put her hands on the person and concentrated really hard. That, and every day was a great hair day for Madoka.

If that is a super power. Maybe it is. At least that would give her two things!

What good is healing cuts and bruises if Toyotama-onee-sama came after her, all towering muscles and blazing speed plus skill with deadly weapons?

Damn little good, that's what. She could offer to heal the bruises Toyotama's knuckles might get from pounding Madoka's face concave.

This was why Madoka made the effort a few years ago to get Toyotama as her protector. No Sekirei in the Sekirei Labs, but _no one_ , fucked with Toyotama.

A small, self-satisfied, smirk graced Madoka's lips as she continued to doodle with blank ink on her stylishly faded blue denim jeans. " _Well, no one but me."_

Madoka missed her onee-sama, had missed her since they were separated, before Madoka's last round of "adjustments". That was life in the Sekirei Labs, a life of constantly losing anyone you made attachments with. She was fortunate that she'd had her best friend, 44 Yosuga, for so many years of her childhood and that she had her onee-sama, Toyotama, from just after Madoka had emerged from the round of adjustments that had aged Madoka past puberty. Many Sekirei did not have even that much consistent companionship in the Sekirei Labs.

She and her best friend Yosuga had made plans though. Plans to find each other and work together in the Sekirei Plan and to hell with the rules if need be. Madoka knew Yosu-chan had not been released into the city yet, thanks to a friendly, if lecherous, lab tech who was vulnerable to Madoka's smiles and light flirting. Madoka knew she needed to find her own Ashikabi and then get word back into the Sekirei Labs to Yosuga how to contact her as soon as Yosuga was pushed out into the city. The two had made some plans on how to communicate, once one of them was sent into the city, but had no chance to test their ideas. Now Madoka would get the opportunity to do just that.

"Your identification is included with your MBI Platinum Card; it indicates your fake identity as Sanjunana Madoka, a Japanese citizen. Remember, this  _illegal_ identity has been created for you by MBI and is not in any way a true legal human record. Any thoughts of betraying the Sekirei Plan and leaving Shin Tokyo will result in your imprisonment and likely execution by the local human authorities as well as…"

Madoka had few illusions about her chances in the Sekirei Plan. She was fortunate enough to be among the first released, before all 100-plus of the other Sekirei were free and roaming around Shin Tokyo looking for easy targets. At least she would have some time to find her Ashikabi and enjoy the short months of the rest of her life.

Madoka drew a few "Happy Neko" logos on her jeans legs with her black ink pen, lost in her thoughts. Maybe her Ashikabi would be the sort of guy who would draw other Sekirei to him; a real tough, badass sort, the kind of guy that other Sekirei would want. Not that Madoka was wild about the idea of sharing her mate, except maybe with Yosuga… but she could see living with a situation in which she was the Queen of the House.

In addition, her Ashikabi's' other bonded Sekirei, all strong combat types of course, would keep her and her Ashikabi safe, like good minions should.

Okay, maybe like good concubines.

Concubines _. If_ they were nice to _her_ , the One and Only Wife. Well, maybe One and Only Wife Plus Also Wife Yosuga.

Madoka missed Yosu-chan more than anything.

"It is critical that you immediately seek out your Ashikabi, for until you have found your destined life mate you will be vulnerable to the most ruthless of the enemy Sekirei in the city. You must find your Ashikabi and with a kiss the psychic wings of your race will bond you…"

That seemed like a good plan to her. Now she just had to find the strong, tall, ruthless, dark-haired, handsome, and clever guy that fit the bill and make him hers. It never crossed Madoka's mind that she might find who she wanted and fail to convince him. There wasn't a male from 12 to 80, and few females, who could resist her when she put her mind to it. No, the real challenge would be in finding him; surviving until she could locate her destined Ashikabi, then get him to build their power base and influence until they were safe and secure to live happily ever after!

Madoka's full, pink lips smiled at that thought as her carefully manicured and painted fingers toyed with the faded denim of her jeans. Her sky-blue eyes were no longer seeing the early snow outside or the high speed freeway the sleek black mini-bus was now traveling on. Instead, her vision was occupied with a picture of her handsome, strong, dark, and mysterious Ashikabi faithfully waiting for her, somewhere in this city.

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Somewhere in the north of Shin Tokyo, a scruffy, rakish, handsome (if starting to show his age a bit), Japanese man by the name of Kaoru Seo sneezed, repeatedly. This startled the twin-sister Sekirei he had "winged" just that very hour, binding them to him so that from now on they had to do whatever he said! He was their Ashikabi now, just like he planned when he left MBI's employ as one of their lab monkeys the week before.

This was going to be so awesome! And no _way_ was he going to fall into the same fate as his close friend and college sempai, the late Asama Takehito, who had lost his life due to caring more for MBI and their Sekirei than he cared for himself. Takehito had given Seo some advantages against the Sekirei Plan and Seo was damned if he wasn't going to use those advantages to the best of his ability. He'd been waiting for years for MBI's Sekirei Plan to begin and now he had his own Sekirei! And they weren't ball busting hanya's like the one Takehito had settled for.

Seo sneezed again.

"Seo-sama, are you sick? Do you have a cold?" the concerned tone of number 11 Hikari's voice brought a happy smile to Seo's lips. As the three walked aimlessly down the sidewalk her sister, number 12 Hibiki, looked up at him with worry writ on her delicate and classically pretty face. Seo tried to make a point of appreciating Hibiki's pretty face because he could not see past Hikari's awesome rack. Man, did that girl have some great tits!

"No, no, I'm fine, girls, I'm fine! Hey, let's go get some food, eh? Then a hotel room somewhere and let's get to know each other better, eh?" Seo grinned raffishly at the pretty twins who were comfortably snuggling each side of his torso, his hands moving downwards then squeezing their firm rumps. Twins! This was so great!

Seo didn't notice the glares his roaming hands had evoked on the beautiful faces of his two Sekirei. He _did_ notice that the hair on his arms was standing up, as though an electrical charge was building…

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Yesterday's snow was still hanging around in the high school courtyard. The late Friday afternoon sky was slate and chilly, as seen from Tokyo Metro High School's room 210 where Gregory O'Donnell had his last class of the day: Junior's Honors English. Unlike most of his peers in the teacher's lounge Gregory loved winter in Shin Tokyo. Though the seasons were mild in the sprawling metropolis he preferred the chill clean air of a blustery December day to the thicker air of spring and summer.

Though there was something to be said for springtime in Japan.

Still, days like this, with snow on the ground, some ice hanging from the bare branches of the trees in the school's large courtyard, and a low sky with gusts of cold wind chasing students from building to building, reminded him a bit of where he grew up. His childhood home had been in New Hampshire on the east coast of the United States; one of those places that none of his Japanese students had heard of and so far a 100% failing score on that bit of trivia. Not that he could blame them. Nothing particularly significant had occurred in New Hampshire in over a hundred years, even considering the impressive array of universities the small state claimed, including Dartmouth College, Gregory's own alma mater.

_Blustery_. That was the perfect English word for a day like this. He had made sure to work it into his lessons today though he had little real optimism that any of his students would ever actually use the word at any point in their lives. Nevertheless, one could hope, which gave fuel to Gregory's somewhat quixotic mission of keeping slightly archaic English words alive here in the Shibuya Ward of Shin Tokyo, six-thousand six-hundred fifty-six miles from Dartmouth College.

He would give a lot to overhear, just once, a graduate of Tokyo Metro High School use "blustery" in a sentence.

Gregory smiled to himself as he finished packing away his school issued tablet and other electronics into his old-fashioned attaché case. The attaché went along with the tweed jacket which he made a point of wearing when the weather turned like this, which was rarely enough. His wife thought he was being a bit silly with such an affectation, but damnit, a fellow deserved a few indulgences and play-acting the Ivy League don on a _blustery_ day in Tokyo was his right! So what if he was closer to being a computer-game loving otaku than an Ivy League don. The tweed jacket was cool!

Okay, well, maybe not "cool". But he was going to keep it, damnit!

As he rubbed his hands through his thinning, short cropped, dirty blonde hair, he subconsciously sucked in the small bit of around-the-middle-gut he'd noticed he was carrying around since his 40th birthday a few months past. Then Gregory thrust his thin arms into the tweed jacket's protection, and checked his appearance in the window reflection before exiting the classroom for the day.

Appearances mattered a lot in the teaching business, and even more so in Japan than in the US. Gregory long had the habit of checking to make sure his tie was straight, his collars turned down properly, his shirt well and evenly tucked into his slacks, even after the last class was long gone and the school empty except for those student clubs that met after school.

He hoped to have time to stop and take a few photos on the way home; catch some of this snow in the picturesque back streets of Shibuya Ward that he knew would make for great shots. This part of Shin Tokyo was best known for Shibuya Crossing and for the Meiji Shrine, which was 175 acres of immaculate forest in the west of Shin Tokyo. But it also had some amazing back alleys to explore!

He'd best hurry though, since the sun set early this time of year and traffic was miserable at the best of times. Why he insisted on keeping a private vehicle in a city where the mass transit was an elegant and amazing work of engineering genius he was not sure. Holding onto his American independence perhaps. But he loved his big, soft-top, sunset-orange Jeep Wrangler 4x4. It was _comfortable_. His lean six-foot frame fit in it nicely - unlike many Japanese vehicles - and it was _cool_.

Well, he thought it was cool. So did most of his male students, especially the ones in the Auto Repair Club which he helped sponsor each year. His wife, Karen, mostly thought it was an expensive indulgence.

The American Media and Culture Club tried to get him to take over sponsorship of that student club when he arrived four years ago, since he was assumed to be an expert on American pop culture. But he really didn't have any interest in that sort of club. It was just a bit cliché, too. He already spent all day in class talking about American and Canadian and British culture, since fluency in a language really did not matter much unless you had something to talk to the native speaker about. By their last year in high school the students who elected to take his Senior English class were already essentially fluent; they were polishing their skills at this point and delving into grammatical esoterica, the sort of language mechanics linguists were concerned with.

So he helped the American Media Club occasionally, since the main teacher sponsor asked so nicely and was - he had to confess - a very attractive woman. However he primarily co-sponsored the Auto Repair Club, or as it was known when he was in high school "Auto Shop". The 17 and 18 year old males who filled that club - with their Mazda's and Hyundai's and Toyota's - thought his big, canvass topped, 4x4, Jeep Wrangler was awesome.

So there. If he had to spend every Saturday teaching a half day of English as a Second Language to adult students in order to afford the Jeep, the insurance on it, the parking fees, the gas prices, the parking space rental at the school, and the garage rental at the apartment it was worth it!

As Gregory pulled the Jeep out of the Tokyo Metro High School parking lot and into the evening traffic he figured he had little chance of catching the pictures he wanted to take of those back streets in the snow. But maybe he could catch one of them before it got dark, if he hurried.

He sped up, cutting in and out of traffic a bit more aggressively than was his usual style. Might as well get some practical use from his bulky vehicle he figured. And he really did want to get some snow pictures of those backstreets before getting home to his wife and teen daughter. Plus he had plans for logging on to World of Guildwars III for a few hours of raiding before bed tonight. Papa needs a new set of Legendary Armor, baby!

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Monday, December 9th, 2019

Madoka had spent her first weekend of freedom from MBI's Sekirei Labs at the Shin Tokyo "Palace Hotel", a luxury hotel near the Imperial Palace. All shining chrome, steel, glass, and cold lighting, the towering structure of the hotel was matched on all sides by ever more amazing, colorful, and sleek buildings which together made up the most modern urban environment the world had ever seen. Kilometer after kilometer of skyscrapers reached hundreds of meters into the sky with their bases forming an incredibly dense street-level commercial district. Multi-national corporations of every sort vied for the most prestigious office spaces, advertising exposure, and - inevitably - parking allotments.

The traffic was pretty bad if Madoka was any judge. Not that she'd ever visited any other city to compare it to, but the thousands of shiny new cars that moved along the urban street grid didn't ever seem to go anywhere very fast until they finally reached the ring of freeways that led ever further away from the dense downtown area. Then auto-navigation and piloting took over for many of the newest vehicles and the municipal traffic system coordinated with the underground rail and the street-level bus systems to ease the traffic.

Having checked out of the hotel she had sheltered in for the previous few days Madoka shouldered the small, stylish, touristy knapsack she'd purchased which now contained some new clothes and living essentials. She intended to take the subway to the Akihabara District just north of downtown where she wanted to explore and perhaps rent a room to live in for the immediate future. From what she had seen on the hotel City Information Channel the anime and manga otaku culture of Akihabara looked exciting and fun as well as much less intimidating than the immense chrome and glass canyons of the downtown district.

There would surely be more young people there as well; the hotel she had been staying at was very luxurious but the clientele were all old people. Well, old men, at least. With many young, very pretty women. _That_ fact led to a lot of assumptions about Madoka's presence at the hotel which she was already quite tired of.

Madoka shuddered. Wrinkly old man skin… over wrinkly old man… parts… GAH! Gross! Gross gross gross!

Walking the few blocks towards the nearest subway station Madoka enjoyed the chilly evening air even though it was biting her fingers a bit. Maybe she should get a pair of gloves if this cold weather was going to be staying around? Madoka tried to remember how long winter was supposed to last, but a lifetime of experience inside MBI's sprawling laboratories didn't include a lot of intimate knowledge of weather patterns. It was still a few weeks until New Year's Day and it was still winter after New Year's Day so she probably should get some gloves.

The things they didn't think to tell a person about life in the real world!

The side street she was walking along was notably light on foot traffic, which was something of a relief. The incredibly dense crowds on the sidewalks was another aspect of life in the city that Madoka realized she wasn't equipped to handle after spending her entire life in the dormitories and labs at MBI's main campus.

Madoka quickly made her way along the well-lit evening walkways not focusing on anything other than her chilled fingers and being amused at the cold air making little puffs of vapor when she exhaled.

A feeling, a sense of something familiar, made her pause for a moment at a narrow space between two towering downtown buildings.

Madoka turned her head to look down the one-lane space, really it was just a well-lit alley. Her carefully sculpted eyebrows drew down and together in thought. There was something, someone she knew, perhaps, down this way. On impulse the blonde Sekirei walked into the alleyway, looking up and around, trying to get a feel for what it was or who it was she had sensed in this area.

A loud crash from ahead, echoing in the narrow space between the buildings, startled Madoka so badly she yelped aloud. She stopped and stared at the waste dumpsters some ten meters further along that were at a left turn in the alley. A person had just _plowed_ into the steel bins from past the left turn and scattered the heavy, wheeled containers with a huge racket. The girl who had impacted the big trash bins lay on the concrete paving, trying to stand but having little success.

The girl was familiar to Madoka, even in the odd yellow and black skin tight body suit! She was number 86 Katsuragi, a Sekirei who had spent a short while in the Group 11 dormitory in which Madoka had spent most of her life. Madoka did not know 86 Katsuragi very well; it had been several years ago and Katsuragi had been a quiet, reserved sort of girl who had only spent a short time in Madoka's group before being moved out to some other Group.

Madoka could only stand there in the middle of the alleyway, shocked and watching, as Katsuragi struggled to get to her feet but could only fall back to the ground, obviously injured from whatever had caused her to hit those waste bins so hard.

The clacking sound of boot heels on concrete now echoed through the urban canyon. Someone was unhurriedly walking towards the fallen number 86 from further down the alleyway, past the left turn. Madoka swiftly hid herself in the shadowed lee of a wide garage doorway. She pressed against the cold metal frame, peeking just one eye around the corner to see what was happening. Who it was that had thrown the other Sekirei with such force?

The echoing footsteps slowed and Madoka saw the tall woman whose steps had been so ominously approaching the fallen number 86. Madoka's heart clenched for a long moment, both hopeful and fearful. She recognized the muscular limbs, the long, exotic, dark-green hair spilling to the small of the back, the striking ice blue eyes, and not least, the two meter fighting staff/javelin casually held in the woman's right hand.

Madoka had vaguely hoped to find her onee-sama but this was not the scenario the little blonde Sekirei had envisioned.

Number 16 Toyotama stopped next to the still struggling form of 86 Katsuragi, then bent over at the hips and grabbed the fallen girl by the back of her head. Toyotama's gloved fingers twisted cruelly in the hair of the other Sekirei, getting a solid grip, before pulling the fallen girl upright, easily, in an intimidating display of strength. Toyotama held Katsuragi up by her hair, causing the other girl to flail about trying to find footing which was just out of reach.

Madoka remembered the night she had suggested this exact maneuver for her onee-sama, to use on someone physically defeated but who still needed convincing that they were truly at Toyotama's mercy. It was devastatingly effective. Madoka remembered 14 Chiyo finally being convinced by Toyotama to leave Madoka alone after weeks of Chiyo picking on Madoka.

14 Chiyo never wore long hair again that Madoka ever saw. The back of her hair, especially, was in a buzz cut even to the last day Madoka saw her, on the last day Madoka saw Group 11 just a few months ago.

Toyotama reached over her shoulder with her left hand and snapped her javelin into a pair of clips between her shoulders to store it out of the way, then casually backhanded number 86 across the face, blood from the smaller girl's busted lip splattering the dark blue gloves which covered Toyotama's arms to above the elbows.

"Onee-sama…" Madoka winced at how casually Toyotama was beating the smaller 86 Katsuragi. Then, Toyotama was always strong, especially after her puberty "adjustment" period back in the MBI Sekirei Labs. She'd come out of that adjustment with not only dense, thick, muscle but a different attitude and mindset. Not cruel or mean, just… strong minded. In addition, that was when she'd started looking at Madoka with the same eyes the male lab techs had.

[ _Memory_ ] _Madoka's whole body felt a tremor go from her head to her toes, trembling with excitement as she looked up into Toyotama's blue-green eyes. Eyes that looked at Madoka's face with hunger and barely suppressed desire. The Amazonian Sekirei's fingers were in Madoka's long, thick, blonde hair and their naked bodies were pressed tightly against each other from breasts to knees, with Madoka's hands gripping the larger girl's muscular flanks. Madoka wordlessly encouraged her onee-chan by wrapping her own legs around Toyotama's hips and locking her ankles together. Finally, Toyotama gave in and slowly closed the distance between their lips and took what Madoka was so obviously offering…_ ]

Shaking her head to clear _that_ memory, Madoka watched her onee-sama and 86 Katsuragi with dread. Madoka knew there was more going on here than just two Sekirei battling in the Sekirei Plan. She could _feel_ that Katsuragi was unwinged still and that Toyotama was not. So what was this? Something was wrong, very wrong.

Toyotama, satisfied that her opponent was now completely beaten, turned to look down the alley the way she had come, her face blank, unfeeling, and calm.

The headlights of an approaching vehicle cast a growing illumination on the pair of Sekirei. One, standing tall, her large full breasts displayed enticingly in a blue and white open-belly top that showed off her defined abdominal muscles very well. Thigh-high blue leather boots covered her long, powerful, legs.

The other girl was defeated, injured, humiliated, and dangling with her yellow-and-black boot toes barely scraping the pavement of the alleyway. Number 16 held her captive out and away from her body easily, with one arm, almost straight out to the side. It was an intimidating display of raw strength, by design. The other girl was barely able to reach one hand up behind her own head to grip Toyotama's hand where it twisted cruelly in 86's hair.

Madoka's heart thudded so loudly in her chest that she was sure Toyotama would hear it, ten meters away. She watched as the automobile headlights ceased growing larger and brighter; they now clearly illuminated 16 and 86. Madoka heard a pair of car doors open then close. Two people were exiting the car.

Madoka strained to picture what her eyes could not see, around the corner of the alley ahead. She was always one of the best among the Group 11 girls at seeing around corners. Surely, here, when she really needed it… yes! There!

{ _Farsight_ } _A limousine; a dark-suited black-haired man with eye glasses holding open the back passenger-side door; a white-suited, very handsome, light haired young man exiting the limousine then walking towards 16 and the captive 86. Madoka noticed the irrelevant coincidence that his hair was the exact same shade of dark-blonde as Katsuragi's._ }

The white-suited man had an aura about him that, in spite of his bishōnen good looks, made Madoka fearful. Whoever he was, he was a dangerous man, someone Madoka wanted to avoid. She could tell that from the way he held himself, the cruel cast of his face as he came to a stop before Toyotama. As he was now visible to Madoka's physical eyes, she focused all of her senses on the scene; Madoka could see every detail as it unfolded and hear every word perfectly even though she huddled in the garage doorway ten meters away.

The white suited man called over his shoulder to the dark haired limousine driver, "Good job, Kakizaki. Your information on where this one would be released looks to have been accurate."

{Farsight} _Madoka 'saw' the dark suited man, Kakizaki, preen at the praise of his boss, using a finger to press his glasses higher up onto the bridge of his nose.}_

Madoka rolled her eyes in spite of herself. Seriously?

{Farsight} " _Thank you, Higa-sama. One only hopes to serve."}_

It was all Madoka could do to hold in her laughter. This guy could not be for real, could he?

"Let's see if a second of you alien things can be bound to one Ashikabi, eh?" The white suited man, whose name appeared to be Higa, gestured to Toyotama who held the whimpering Katsuragi out towards the man who was obviously Toyotama's Ashikabi.

Madoka's heart sank. She knew Toyotama as well, or better, than she knew any other Sekirei other than her childhood friend Yosuga. Serving such a man could not be her onee-sama's destiny, it just couldn't! Yet Madoka could see the blank-faced number 16 gripping Katsuragi by the hair, turning the other girl's head so that her face was angled upwards and facing Higa. Katsuragi's legs were weakly trying to find purchase on the concrete but failing. Both of Katsuragi's hands now held onto Toyotama's where number 16's fingers were tangled in the smaller girls light brown hair.

Higa stepped up closely to the vainly struggling Katsuragi and reached out with his right hand. He gripped the girl's chin and pulled it downward with a jerk. The aristocratic Ashikabi then put his thumb on the girl's lower front teeth, his fingers beneath her chin, and held her mouth open.

Katsuragi's eyes rolled in her head, terror making her struggle harder against Toyotama's iron grip, to no avail. Sad, scared, sounds came from the terrified number 86's open mouth as Higa turned her face back and forth, looking at her as though he were studying a particularly distasteful insect. With a grimace on his face, Higa leaned towards Katsuragi, causing the captive Sekirei to try to cry out awkwardly, "Agahh!"

Madoka could barely stand to watch; she had never considered in her worst nightmares that an Ashikabi would try to kiss a Sekirei who did not want to bond with him! This was _horrible_ , and there was Toyotama, calmly helping this monster as he leaned in to force his kiss on poor Katsuragi!

Madoka's stomach heaved when she saw Higa _spit_ into Katsuragi's pried-open mouth, instead of kissing her.

She clamped both her hands over her own mouth to keep the outrage she felt from coming forth. He had spit in Katsuragi's mouth! Why would someone do that? What sort of world had MBI released her and the rest of the Sekirei into? He spit in her mouth. _He spit in her mouth!_

"Well, that didn't work. Damn." Higa's aristocratic voice carried his obvious disappointment. "Well, let's try it this way then."

He licked the middle finger of his left hand while still gripping Katsuragi's chin and teeth in his right. Disgust clearly written on his fine features, Higa stuck the finger into her mouth and moved the digit about to mix his saliva with hers.

Light flared and filled the alleyway as an explosion of psychic energy, high up near her shoulder blades, burst from Katsuragi's back. Pale, yellow, diaphanous, wings unfurled, illuminating the appalling tableau in stark light. Madoka, beyond horrified, witnessed the glowing Sekirei symbol appear behind Katsuragi between the glowing wings. It settled onto the thrashing girl's shoulders and embedded itself there for life.

One of Madoka's sisters was now forever bonded to a monster, against her will.

[Memory] _"Hi, I'm Yosuga and this is my best friend, Madoka. What's your name?"_

_The new transfer to Group 11, skinny, pale, with light blue eyes and dirty blonde hair, answered in a soft voice, "Hi, I'm Katsuragi, number 86."]_

"Okay, Kakizaki, make a note. You don't have to kiss the damn things, but you do have to touch them," Higa called out to his assistant, ignoring the gasping, twitching, number 86 still being held firmly in place by 16 Toyotama.

Turning his head to look at Toyotama, Higa ordered, "Number 16, take that back to the office and clean it up. You are responsible for making sure it knows the rules and what is expected of it. I will have Kakizaki check on it tomorrow and begin its discipline. Do not disappoint me or I will have Kakizaki discipline you, no matter how unsightly he considers your body. Am I clear?"

"Yes, Higa-sama." Toyotama's agreement was immediate, clear, and calm.

Higa nodded and walked back to his limousine while poor Katsuragi writhed in humiliated ecstasy, the psychic fires from the winging still blazing through her nervous system.

{Farsight} _Madoka's 'sight' clearly showed her the back door of the limousine closing behind Higa. He took his seat, waiting for his assistant to drive them out of the alley, already picking up his phone to deal with other business._ }

Madoka watched, with tears streaking her cheeks, one hand covering her own mouth to stifle the sobs she could not completely stop, as the headlights of the limousine backed away. This left a still unmoving and expressionless Toyotama holding a whimpering and weeping Katsuragi. Number 16 shook her head then dropped 86 in a wretched pile at her feet.

"Forever and ever, now, right?" Toyotama's sternly beautiful face grimaced down at Katsuragi.

"Well, you can thank our sister, number 22, for finding out where you were going to be released and when. Aren't you lucky? Come on, 86, get up. You heard our Ashikabi. Follow me. Don't speak unless spoken to, or I will break your fingers one by one until you get the picture. This isn't the fantasy world you thought you were going to, and the faster you figure that out the less pain you'll be in. Got it?"

Katsuragi nodded her head, still crying. This wasn't good enough for Toyotama, who kicked the girl in the side of the head. Her booted foot sent the girl tumbling into the garage dumpsters, again.

"I asked you a question. When our Ashikabi, or his assistant, or I, ask you a question, you answer immediately, aloud, and respectfully. You do _not_ nod your fucking head."

This time Katsuragi spoke up, crying out, "Yes, yes, I have it. Moushiwake arimasen, Toyotama-sama!"

Toyotama reached down and picked up the wretched girl, throwing her over a shoulder.

"Don't apologize, 86; just do as you're told. And I'm just number 16, just like you are just 86. Our Ashikabi doesn't feel actual names are appropriate to… things… like us. Come on, we've got a long way to go to the east side office, so keep quiet and think on the wonderfulness of your new Ashikabi, eh. I can pretty much guarantee he won't ever touch you again, so your memories of tonight will just have to last."

Toyotama glanced down the alleyway towards where Madoka crouched in the lee of the garage-door frame, her dark green eyebrows pulling down and together for a moment. Madoka held her breath, desperate to avoid giving away her position.

After just a moment Toyotama leapt away, carrying the wretched Katsuragi with her.

Madoka waited until she was sure Toyotama and Katsuragi were long gone before stepping out from her hiding place. She staggered towards the turn in the alley where she had witnessed something she had never even thought could happen. A nightmare for any Sekirei.

One that would no doubt happen to _her_ if this Higa, or another Ashikabi like him, ever caught up to her.

[Memory] _The skinny little girl with the dirty blonde hair tried one more time to cheer up Madoka._

" _Hey, Mado-chan, tell me about what your Ashikabi will be like and I'll tell you about mine, okay?"_

_Katsuragi hoped this worked; the Ashikabi game always pulled Madoka out of her moods._

_Madoka answered, with a soft smile of appreciation, "Okay."]_

Staring down at the splattered blood of 86 Katsuragi on the concrete pavement, Madoka thought of the short time the plain-faced, quiet, girl spent with Madoka's group in the Sekirei Labs, years ago. Madoka wept for Katsuragi as well as for her onee-sama, Toyotama.

Then she ran off towards the subway station, fear and desperation powering her flight away from this place.

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Four days after the terrible events she had witnessed in that downtown alley Madoka had found her way to the west side of the sprawling metropolis, after spending the night at a different hotel each evening as she explored the city. She was very glad that the first hotel she had walked into after MBI released her downtown had been the five–star luxury of the Tokyo Palace Hotel. The level of service extended to even an ignorant Anglo girl in blue jeans, who held an unlimited Platinum MBI card in her hand, was flawless and Madoka had learned at least the process for renting a room at a hotel without awkwardness, thanks to the unrivaled courtesy of the Place Hotel's desk clerk.

Shin Tokyo was still cold, the weather remaining windy and cloudy, though there had been no more snow. The sun had set some hours ago, leaving the black cloud covered sky low above the skyscrapers of Shin Tokyo, colored lights from buildings, advertisements, LED projections and holographs, reflecting back down from the low clouds eerily.

At least, Madoka thought it was eerie. Being outdoors so much was one adjustment she had never considered would be difficult, but it was! All of the Sekirei, as far as she knew, spent most of their time indoors at the MBI Labs and Dormitories here in Shin Tokyo. She certainly had never been out into the city.

Some short exercise periods allowed in the rooftop gym facilities wasn't nearly enough to become used to the idea of weather and sky and crowds and sidewalks and traffic signs or any of the thousand other small yet significant items people likely took for granted as they went about their lives here in this metropolis of 19 million people.

Madoka walked aimlessly along one of the many waterways that crisscrossed the west side of the city. It might be a canal, a small river, or a creek; Madoka really could not say for sure what the precise word for the narrow ribbon of water was, but it had a level, concrete, sidewalk that meandered alongside it. Joggers and walkers used this during the day, but now in the early night it was mostly vacant. The walkway passed under footbridges and street overpasses, all well-lit and clean, which lulled the tiny blonde Sekirei into a careless, introspective, state.

She walked with her small knapsack over her shoulder, her purse and other possessions in the knapsack for easy carrying. She didn't have a destination in mind, though part of her mind realized it was getting colder as the night grew later and a hotel would be needed soon.

What occupied the Sekirei's thoughts were questions about her Ashikabi and speculation about how dangerous it was for her to walk about the city even during the day, due to monsters like that Higa person. What if there were other Ashikabi sending their Sekirei out to find and capture newly released Sekirei and forcing them into a bond which could not be broken this side of the grave? Didn't Higa also indicate that his lackey, Kakizaki, somehow knew that 86 Katsuragi was going to be released on that date and in that location? Something to do with number 22? That statement from Higa had terrifying implications.

Madoka realized that if there was one like Higa, there were surely others. Did others have "inside information" about the release schedule for the Sekirei?

Biting the inside of her cheek, her eyes burned thanks to sudden, unshed tears. Madoka thought about the naïve dreams she and other Sekirei had in the MBI Labs of their "destined" Ashikabi; the man who would be drawn to them by fate. With a kiss, there would be a lifetime, unbreakable, bond of love and romance between them. The visible mark of that bond taking the form of the Sekirei Crest that would then be visible between the shoulders of any 'winged' Sekirei.

Madoka sighed bitterly as she walked along the jogging path. There might be some Sekirei who ended up with a loving Ashikabi and some form of romance and love but she could see now that many of her sisters, and likely herself as well, were destined for a short, brutal, life bound to hateful and cruel men.

Could Toyotama still love her Ashikabi, in spite of the horrid nature of the man? She certainly seemed to respect him and obey him without question.

Madoka knew Toyotama from the years they spent together in the MBI Sekirei Labs. They had spent quite a bit of their time as lovers, with Toyotama-onee-sama taking the role of protector of the smaller, weaker, very pretty, Madoka. This arrangement continued until Madoka was removed from Group 11 for her final individual "adjustments" and processing. She had not been allowed to even say goodbye to her onee-sama or her few other friends, like 44 Yosuga or 18 Ichiya.

She _knew_ Toyotama-onee-sama; the green-haired Sekirei was strong, bold, brave, and she was protective and caring. If Madoka had ended up sharing an Ashikabi with number 16 and that Ashikabi was a good man, Madoka would have been content enough. She had loved her big sister and protector Toyotama even though they both knew that once the Sekirei Plan began and they were released into the city it was probably going to be every Sekirei for herself.

And Madoka knew that Toyotama had loved her as well. The towering, green-haired, Sekirei only admitted it with difficulty, but Madoka had the words from Toyotama's lips more than once. Toyotama had certainly _desired_ Madoka. But seeing how 16 behaved now, with 86 Katsuragi, how brutal she had been, how hateful her words and tone, how harsh… it _had_ to be because of her Ashikabi, that evil man, Higa.

And if being bonded to such a foul and heartless man could change a strong willed and brave Sekirei like 16 Toyotama, what hope did weak and scared 37 Madoka have?

This wasn't how it was supposed to be! Not once, ever, in all the time she was in the MBI Labs, had such evil possibilities been talked about; not among the scientists, the administrators, or the other Sekirei. No one had even imagined that this sort of thing could happen!

Madoka continued walking though the cold wind was starting to chill her legs through the blue denim. Was it safe walking around at night? During the day? If she did not move around the town, how would she meet her Ashikabi? But if she walked about, wasn't she in danger of being forcibly winged?

Distracted by her dark thoughts, Madoka didn't notice the gang of street toughs who'd surrounded her as she walked under one of the many street-overpasses along the waterway. She was oblivious until one grabbed her knapsack and yanked it off her shoulder, making her stumble into another of the young thugs. He grabbed her arms and held her in a strong grip, leering at her as she began to struggle and cry out.

"Well, look at this, we were wondering about dinner and the gods just delivered that and desert too, eh?"

Madoka could smell alcohol on the young man's breath as he talked. She shook her arms to try to get free but he had a good grip on her. Peering around she saw there were six others who were now looking her over. One grabbed the zipper of her bulky jacket and pulled it down, then held it open, whistling in admiration.

"Holy shit, will you look at that! Woooah, this is our lucky day, fellas, and yours too, blondie! If you don't fight too much or scream, we'll even let you live, promise!"

The tall, dark-eyed street tough could not take his gaze off Madoka's breasts, which were snuggly covered by a silk, Chinese cheongsam blouse that hugged every curve of her upper body. The freezing air striking her torso, as the jacket was pulled open, made her nipples harden, visibly, through the fabric of the shirt, keeping the man's attention completely riveted.

The slightly drunk punk who was holding her arms behind her back let go to reach around and paw at her breasts through the thin material of the shirt, squeezing her brutally.

" _Oh god, what if, what if one of these brutes is an Ashikabi? I could end up bound to one of them!"_

Suddenly the possibility of gang rape was not the biggest fear in her heart.

As the other street toughs crowded around to get a look at their prize, Madoka panicked. She screamed, "No!" then stomped her boot heel down as hard as she could onto the foot of the one grabbing and squeezing her so cruelly.

With a cry of pain, his grip on her relaxed just enough for her to twist free and run, as fast as she could; away from the hidden space under the bridge where the street gang had lurked, where they took shelter from the wind and from the cameras of the local police.

Madoka ran; it was difficult in her boots, but she did not stop for fear of those horrible men catching up to her and dragging her back to whatever horrid fate they had planned for her.

What felt like hours later, Madoka collapsed onto a mass transit bus stop bench, gasping for breath and hoping she was safe. Surely they weren't following her still! She felt as though she had run for kilometers. She was cold, shivering from the wind and the increasing dampness in the air. She was also shaking from reaction to the danger she had been in, the fear of what might have happened to her if she'd not been lucky enough to escape.

Madoka resolved to get a hotel room and lay low for a few days, recuperate from this latest ordeal. Then she realized that her purse, with her identification and her unlimited MBI credit card…

… had been in her knapsack, with everything else she owned. Which was now in the hands of some street thug, somewhere she would never find even if she had the courage to try.

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Gregory took his cup of tea and looked out from the patio window of his family's apartment in the Shibuya Ward in the west of Tokyo, overlooking the night-lit street that passed in front of the apartments. A concrete retaining wall across the way formed the far border of the sidewalk along the street, leading to a mass transit rail crossing not far away. It was a view he often stopped to appreciate, a distinctly Japanese vista which many walked past daily without seeing.

He had spent the evening helping his wife Karen and their teenaged daughter Michelle hang the last of their Christmas decorations. The reflections of the bright twinkling colored lights shone in the glass of the patio door, overlaying the blue-light of the street scene outside his window. It had been a pleasant evening, a nice Friday night with the family, without any bickering or trouble among them. Always a blessing when that could happen.

Michelle, or Mishi as she was more commonly called now, was 16 years old and a popular high school student with excellent verbal and written Japanese skills. She had already bid goodnight to her boyfriend, Yashiro Tomo, and turned in for the night. Gregory was proud of how well the girl had adjusted to life in Tokyo. Moving the girl here when she was 11 years old and barely had any Japanese language had been a gamble, but it had paid off. Michelle, or Mishi-chan as she was known to her friends, had blossomed in Tokyo. Gregory wondered if the girl would move back to the States after high school or not. At this point he figured it was probably up to Tomo-san as much as anything else.

Boyfriends and the pretty teenage daughter were the main reason Gregory's hair was now thinning and receding. It had been a lot easier navigating the teen years of his and Karen's now-adult son, Mark.

"Looks like it's going to rain," Gregory said aloud, in English, to no one specifically. The rule of the house was English inside, Japanese whenever they were away from home. It helped Karen, particularly, feel less isolated and homesick, especially when they had first moved here to Japan.

Karen called from the kitchen where she was putting away the dinner dishes, "What's that? Rain? Great, just great. Hopefully it's stopped by tomorrow when you have to go to Saturday classes. I hate it when you have to drive in this city in the rain, people here can't drive at all, I swear."

Gregory just smiled slightly in response. Karen was not wild about living in Japan, but he had learned if he just let her rant about it now and then, she was able to deal with living here well enough. Her job at the central office for the Red Cross here in Shin Tokyo kept her busy enough that most of her complaints about the city simply involved traffic these days.

It was thanks to Karen's Red Cross job that they both first visited Japan in the aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. They had been relief workers helping clean up the wreckage of that horrible disaster. When they returned to the States, Gregory threw himself into his Japanese language studies. A few years later and they were back in Japan, this time in Tokyo; he as an English teacher in the public schools, Karen as an administrator with the Red Cross office. Nine years after the Tōhoku earthquake, they were both doing very well in their chosen professions.

It had been a good move, Gregory thought. He and Karen may have grown apart, but after twenty years of marriage that was bound to happen. They got along mostly, and that counted for a lot.

A rumble of thunder in the distance made itself heard. Yes, it was definitely going to rain, and it was cold as hell too. Hopefully it didn't freeze out there tonight, or driving to Saturday school was really going to suck, no doubt about it. People here really _didn't_ know how to drive on slick roads, especially in the opinion of a New Hampshire native like Gregory O'Donnell.

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Madoka pulled the cardboard box over her as best she could and huddled down into the lee of an alley wall to get out of the cold wind. Exhausted, without any way to get food or shelter, she could only look blankly up at the sky when the first cold rain drop splattered onto the cardboard she'd hope would cover her until dawn.

When the first peal of thunder reached her ears, she ducked her head as deeply into the hood of her jacket as she could and began to cry, her tears soon mixing with rain as it pelted her in her cardboard shelter in this nameless alleyway. Madoka used her healing ability occasionally on herself, to warm her core temperature up and stop the shivering, enough to nod off to sleep for a few minutes at a time.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. It just wasn't! Not for Sekirei who were to find love, who lived to love and be loved by their Ashikabi.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

* * *

Author's Notes:

First, this story is Rated M (the equivalent of an American Rated R movie, i.e., no one under 17 admitted without a parent, a movie made to be _not_ for teenagers) for _actual reasons_ , not just "to be safe" (whatever _that_ common disclaimer means). There are many adult situations portrayed in this tale, as any serious story of psychic bonded alien sex slaves should at least _try_ to address and acknowledge.  
Sexless eunuchs, such as the canon protagonist Sahashi Minato, are not representative of normal, typical, Japanese teenagers, or, for that matter, representative of normal human males of any age past puberty. Expecting all or even most Ashikabi to behave as sexless eunuchs towards their bonded, willing (very _very_ willing), beautiful alien sex slaves is... let's just say, somewhat unrealistic.  
Obviously the Sekirei are only "sex slaves" to the extent their Ashikabi treat them as such, and there certainly would be those who would treat their permanently bonded unearthly beautiful subservient very poorly as well as those who would treat them very well and lovingly, while _not_ ignoring the Sekirei's desire to carry out their primary mission: interbreeding with Terran humans.  
To be clear, consenting healthy physical relationships are portrayed in this story _and_ unhealthy, unethical, non-consensual, abusive, behavior is _also_ portrayed.  
The author hopes these scenes have been presented in a way that illustrates the importance of sexual behavior and relationships to the people experiencing them, but without crossing the line. Probably a vain hope, but there it is.

Secondly, the author asks the reader to keep in mind that not all ideas and speculations by the _characters_ in the story will be correct or factual. The characters are just as able as anyone to guess wrong and make mistakes. The characters will come up with theories and they will label things incorrectly just as often as anyone else might. Do please try to keep in mind the difference between a _characters_ observations and what is presented as fact by the Voice of the Author.

Thirdly, this story is already mostly outlined in detail (expect about 40 to 45 10,000 word chapters ultimately) and the first several arcs are already written completely at the time that the first chapter will be posted. Each story arc will be posted as a "Book", so "Book One" consisting of the intro arc (the first four chapters) will be posted, then later "Book Two" consisting of chapters five through seven will be posted, and so on, as long as arcs are completed. If the story ever becomes truly abandoned the author will post his outline for all of the remaining chapters for any curious readers.  
Posting only complete arcs should help avoid any abandoned cliffhanger plots, even if the tale is eventually abandoned as incomplete.  
If the story is never completely finished, the reader is welcome to assume that after the last-posted "Book" the characters go on to meet the same fate as they did in canon, or in the fanfic story "The Game Changer" (see below under "Lastly" for notes on "The Game Changer"), whichever the reader prefers.  
Obviously the author hopes that never happens, but given that it has taken a year and a half to write even this much there is always that possibility. Posting only completed story arcs ("Books") should help. The author loathes incomplete and abandoned stories, especially those in the genre/type of this one (romance/relationship/angst sorts of stories) and wants to assure prospective readers that he will at least only post completed plot arcs.

Fourthly, this story treats the two seasons of the _Sekirei anime_ as the canon source, _not_ the manga (167 chapters published at the time of this story's posting). There will be many differences between this story and the manga, **please do not bother pointing them out**. If the reader believes they have noticed contradictory information to canon the author asks that the reader consider whether or not the canon material in question is the anime or the manga before commenting.  
In the _extremely_ unlikely event that a third season of the Sekirei anime is produced, then one expects there will be great differences between this story and whatever story that hypothetical third season tells. To this the author says, "So?"  
On the subject of "canon": every effort has been made to not actually _contradict_ matters presented as _actual_ _facts_ in the canon material, while also not hesitating to _add_ new things to the story if that addition makes the tale better in the opinion of the author. Much of the _new_ information provided in this story (especially the sections that delve into the lives of the Sekirei in the MBI Labs before the start of the Sekirei Plan) is entirely made up by the author of this story and _does not claim to be canonical_. The author _does,_ however _,_ claim just as much right to "make up new stuff" as anyone else, up to and including the original canon author, Ashika Sakura (aka Sakurako Gokurakuin).

Fifth, anyone curious about the dates and the calendar of this story, the author assures you they have been carefully considered and compared to canon to fit. You can review the Sekirei Anime Season One and Two calendar of events at my Tumblr page (a link to that is easily found on the Author's profile). We _meticulously_ went over every episode of both seasons and assembled as close a timeline of the canon story as possible. Be aware that exploring other sections of the author's Tumblr page will expose the curious to NSFW pics (most of it inspired by the characters in this story), so do please only visit _rest_ of the site if you are a legal adult and have a desire to view naked beautiful blonde girls with large breasts.

Sixth, given that a great deal of time passed between writing the first chapter and the most current chapters the author acknowledges there are shifts and changes in style over the course of this story. I can only ask that anyone reading this story understands that over time a writer's skills change and real-life events can have an effect on what they write and how they write it as well and do please forgive any inconsistencies in style noticed. Any actual continuity errors (and the author freely admits there could be some in spite of all efforts) are appreciated when pointed out so that they can be corrected.

Seventh (gah!), the name of the city the story is set in. We're calling it Shin Tokyo in this tale instead of the various translations of the name used in Sekirei, most commonly "Shinto Teito". It's _Tokyo, Japan_. If the reader will just roll with that they will be happier.

Lastly (at last!), in the later arcs of this story (sometime after this story's chapter 25 or so) the overall global Sekirei plot will mirror the global events of the story "The Game Changer" by Fenschway, on this site (note 3/29/16: TGC is currently taken down by the author for a re-write. I have no idea how long it will be unavailable. PM Fenschway with questions about The Game Changer).  
The author is well aware that "The Game Changer" is a somewhat polarizing story which has its own fans and its own detractors and he wishes to make sure potential readers of "No Game For Old Men" understand that the two stories are very different in style _and_ are about completely separate characters with only some limited crossover. Fans of TGC should not assume they will like NGFOM nor should detractors of TGC assume they will not like NGFOM.  
They really are very different stories.  
The author _would_ like to thank Fenschway for generously giving the OK to use his global plot and the events of "The Game Changer" in this story and _thank him_ for _many_ hours of discussion concerning Sekirei, TGC and NGFOM, which have inevitably made this story _much_ better than it otherwise would have been. Fenschway has been the primary Beta Reader for this tale since before the first chapter was even outlined and he has this writer's profound gratitude for his help over the years!  
Not until late in this story will the global events of "The Game Changer" be impacting the world of "No Game For Old Men" and that primarily because the actual canonical "end game" story in the Sekirei manga is not complete at this time and is also, pardon to any actual fans of the manga, not very well written in this writers opinion. The author of this story prefers Fenschway's story of the Sekirei and their purpose on Earth so will use that tale as the basis for where this story eventually goes.  
That said, this is a small-scale story about a handful of people and how their lives were irrevocably changed by Hiroto Minaka's insane Sekirei Plan. It is not focused on the global plot so much as on the effects of events on the individuals "on the ground".

* * *

"No Game For Old Men" has been editor-read by Fenschway. Errors in grammar and spelling are entirely the fault of the author and should not reflect on the heroic efforts the editor-reader has made in helping with the technical writing.  
Sekirei beta readers who have bravely given parts of the story preview reads and feedback to the author include Godric Khargh, angelofpeaceandwar045, FintonStack, Yuna the Ninja, ReaperxStalker, Littlest1, and I'm sure I am forgetting a few others who've at least read the Intro Arc and provided valuable feedback. Thank you each for your help.

I would like to dedicate this story to two fanfiction authors who influenced me greatly:

First, LordoftheLandofFire for being the first fanfic writer I ever read who convinced me that fanfic could be fun and entertaining instead of just weird and geeky. His stories were the inspiration that convinced me to try my own hand at writing fanfic (the observant might see a shout out or two in this tale to LotLoF's various Sekirei stories). Thank you, LotLoF and I hope that if you read this story you enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed your tales.

And second, MistressWinowyll, who's written and collaborated on many stories (mostly Naruto and Rosario+Vampire tales) and whose writing taught me that a fanfic author has just as much right to tell the story they want to tell as anyone else does, including the original author. Tell the story you wish to tell, tell it fearlessly, and let it be judged on its own merits. Thank you for that valuable lesson, MistressWinowyll. I am forever in your debt for it!

Started Aug 22 2013  
Completed Sep 12 2013  
"Final" Edits Sep 29 2014  
Originally Posted May 7 2015


	2. NGFOM 1.2 - Meeting

**No Game For Old Men**

NGFOM 1.2 – Meeting

* * *

 

Saturday, December 14th, 2019

Gregory stepped out of his favorite donut shop with a warm box of glazed delicious awesome in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other. Tea was the traditional drink in Japan but there were many coffee shops. There were hundreds of Starbucks in Shin Tokyo alone, a fact that always surprised Gregory's friends from the States.

"Tea is fine, but for donuts on a cold morning, it's got to be coffee!"

Even if it meant possibly running late for his Saturday morning "English as a Second Language" class.

"Well, they won't start without me. I'm the teacher," Gregory muttered to himself as he maneuvered the box of donuts into the passenger seat of his Jeep. Walking around to the driver's side he opened the door and glanced across the canvas roof of his tall four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Gregory paused with one foot up on the flat black step-rail that ran along the bottom of his Jeep's doorway; his eyes caught on the scene in an alley across the street.

A young woman with shoulder-length blonde hair huddled under wet cardboard and newspapers. She was sitting on the cold ground and leaning against the brick wall of a closed retail store, her breath making small puffs of vapor as she slept. A large sheet of wet cardboard lay nearby that had apparently just been blown away from her by the same stiff breeze that was chilling Gregory's hands.

Homeless people were not common in Shin Tokyo, and homeless, blonde, Anglo girls were a complete anomaly as far as Gregory was concerned. Without looking away from the sleeping girl, Gregory grabbed his Nikon v10 from where he kept it hanging by its strap inside the Jeep. Taking the lens cap off and focusing the camera with the unthinking automation of long practice, Gregory snapped three shots of the sleeping girl in the alley.

"How in the hell did she find an alleyway that had cardboard and newspaper debris to cover up with? That alley is one of maybe five in the entire Shin Tokyo metro area with trash in it."

Just one of the many ways Shin Tokyo was different from big cities in the States.

Lowering the camera and absently putting the lens cap back on, Gregory looked at his cell phone watch, then at the donuts, then at the girl. He muttered, "It's freezing, dammit, and I'm going to be late to class. Gah, damnit!"

Gregory put the camera back into its sling inside the Jeep then jogged across the street with the box of warm donuts in hand.

"Hey, Miss? Miss? Hi, no, hey, don't worry. I'm not here to cause you any trouble. It just looked like you'd maybe had a rough night and could use a donut."

Gregory easily spoke flawless Japanese, and he offered the box of rapidly cooling donuts as he knelt down to make himself a less threatening sight to the just-now-waking and obviously confused girl.

She looked to be about 18 and incredibly pretty though her lips were a bit blue and her teeth were chattering from sleeping outside in this bitter cold. Gregory kept sitting on his heels, holding out the donut box, watching as the girl pushed the wet cardboard covering away from her.

Gregory noticed her sky-blue eyes darted about in a bit of a panic.

_"Probably trying to figure out where she is and how she got here. She doesn't look hung-over though, eyes are puffy but not bloodshot. Did she understand the question? Maybe she doesn't speak Japanese. Damn it's cold! Did she sleep here all night? No way is she homeless, not with those perfect fingernails, the well-kept hair, and those brand-new, if stylishly worn, clothes."_

Being a high school teacher of seventeen and eighteen year-old students for many years, as well as having a teenaged daughter of his own, had trained Gregory's eye to more details of feminine accoutrement than was common for most men his age.

The girl's eyes settled on Gregory as she slowly stood, her muscles must have been a bit cramped and stiff from the cold. Gregory waited until she had finished standing before getting to his feet himself. He backed up a little as he stood, having learned long ago that looming over people tended to put them off, especially here in Japan.

Not that this girl was Japanese. She had natural blonde hair, you could spot bleach jobs no matter how much money was spent on the process. And there had never been a Japanese person born with sky-blue eyes like that.

And damn, she was pretty. Even after a night in the freezing cold and rain as well as sleeping in an alley, she looked like a work of art; something crafted on one of God's more inspired days.

"Donut?" Gregory kept holding out the donut box with what he hoped was a friendly smile on his face.

The girl hesitantly smiled at him, and Gregory was lost for the rest of his life.

Oh and she really was gorgeous. Incredible, beautiful… the most beautiful girl Gregory had ever seen. He stood there holding out the donut box with a befuddled look on his face instead of the intended friendly smile.

She answered in a voice that was a little scratchy from being out in the weather all night, but was nevertheless amazing to Gregory's ears; pure in tone and a clear pitch, mezzo-soprano. There was an alluring timbre to it that Gregory couldn't quite identify. She sounded a bit like a teenaged Sarah McLaughlan. If the very Canadian Sarah McLaughlan ever spoke perfect Tokyo-standard Japanese, that is.

"Thank you, yes, a donut would be very welcome."

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Madoka tried to keep from sighing since the old guy with the donuts had not responded. He was just standing there, staring at her.

She was used to men staring at her. They'd been doing so for years in the MBI Sekirei Labs. Since the round of 'adjustments' that matured her body past puberty she'd had to get used to the male scientists and administrators staring, especially at her breasts. They were generously proportioned, even compared to the Sekirei norm, which was much larger than the Japanese population average. Larger than the German population average, for that matter, where fifty-two percent of the women sported D-cup accessories. Compared to Japan, where fifty-one percent of the women needed only A-cup support. So she was used to… standing out.

Madoka paused for a moment to recall why she knew all that, but failed. The trivia of global breast sizes: life in the MBI Sekirei Labs was extremely competitive between the Sekirei and not just in the fighting arts.

At MBI it had been disconcerting to wake up from a round of adjustments, one of many in her and every Sekirei's life in the labs, and suddenly be the target of male leering. The worst of it were the male scientists since they could, and often did, insist that nudity on the part of their subjects was essential for accurate observation, measurements, and tests.

This blatant excuse for ogling naked nubile females who averaged DD-cup boobs was endorsed and encouraged by the President of MBI, the 'Professor', Hiroto Minaka, so there wasn't anything the uncomfortable Sekirei girls could do about it. Even the female administrators and scientists who were employed by MBI just shrugged and ignored the embarrassment of their Sekirei subjects, for the most part.

No, Madoka was used to being stared at, even leered at. What was making her uncomfortable about this American with the donuts was that his gaze hadn't slid south of her face even after she unzipped her jacket for comfort and took one of his donuts. He kept looking at her face instead of her breasts. Was there something wrong with him?

She chewed the warm pastry, very happy to have something to eat, and stepped out from the alley onto the sidewalk, hoping that the morning sunlight would warm her somewhat. So very cold! All night she had shivered and shaken and then the rain had made it even worse.

Losing her MBI card had turned into the worst disaster she could have imagined. Well, other than a disaster like she'd witnessed befall 86 Katsuragi five days ago in that downtown alley. Freezing in the rain was preferable to being forced into a lifetime of psychic enslavement to a monster like that man Higa, or his slimy sidekick Kakizaki for that matter.

Probably. Maybe.

Madoka looked sideways and up through her dark eye-lashes at the tall American who continued to stare at her with his mouth open like a dead fish. Just her luck; another old pervert, at least 40, with a receding hairline, wrinkles around his eyes and lines on either side of his mouth. Blond hair and green eyes, so she had assumed he was American, though his question to her about the donuts was asked in very good Japanese. He was irritatingly tall as well, probably 190 cm, and looked to be skinny under that silly brown wool jacket.

The wind was cold, and the sun wasn't helping much. The donut was gone all too quickly, and Madoka was forced to admit to herself that she would end up seeking out Higa on her own if she had to spend many more nights outside in this weather and without food.

She felt like crying though it seemed cold enough to freeze her tears on her cheeks if she did.

"My name is O'Donnell Gregory. Please call me Gregory, thank you. How are you? Here, please do have another donut. I've more than I need, really."

Suppressing another sigh, Madoka turned to face the now-identified Gregory O'Donnell, and then turned her very best smile on him while tilting her head cutely. Any port in a storm, and this whole Sekirei Plan of MBI's had turned into more than a mere storm; it was a typhoon.

"My name is Madoka." The blonde girl paused for a moment, trying to remember the family name MBI had given her on her fake ID. "Sanjunana Madoka. And, well, I am so-so, I guess. Thank you for the donut, yes please, I will have another."

She took a second donut and, licking the frosting from her finger, proceeded to devour the donut somewhat rudely. She really was extremely hungry.

His eyes watched her tongue as it wrapped around her index finger to remove the gooey glaze left there by the donut. Madoka smirked, which caught his attention since his gaze was riveted on the action of her lips and tongue.

"At least he has the grace to blush a bit. Maybe this will not be so terrible."

For the first time since she stood up from the mess of cardboard and newspapers, the man's eyes turned away from Madoka's face, somewhat to her relief. He murmured an apology for his staring as he gestured across the street to a large orange vehicle with a canvas top.

Gregory asked her if she might need a ride somewhere, perhaps home or to a friend's house. "I'd be glad to drop you off somewhere if you need a ride. It's no trouble."

"I did have a place to be," Madoka replied, hanging her head slightly. "A friend who was supposed to meet with me when I arrived in the city, but that has not happened and I do not know why. Then last night some thugs stole my bags and my purse, so I am now without identification or resources." She paused and looked up through sooty black lashes at the now-concerned-looking Gregory O'Donnell before continuing, "I confess I am in something of a bad situation now. I can get new identification and replacements for my cards and clothes but it will take several days I am sure. I do not know what to do until then, I know no one in the city at all other than my friend who has not shown up to meet me."

Madoka congratulated herself on such a clever story. Now if she could just get the old guy to offer her a place to stay for a while until she found her Ashikabi then everything would get a lot better. She looked up at Gregory O'Donnell, willing him to want to help her, to do whatever he could to offer her aid without trying to take advantage of her needy state. That part was essential. No taking advantage!

Gregory blinked then tucked the box of donuts under an arm and gestured again towards the vehicle parked in front of the bakery across the street. He said, "I'll certainly do whatever I can to help, Sanjunana-san. I have a class I need to teach for the next few hours. After that, we'll see what sort of plan we can come up with, okay? If you'll come with me, at least you'll be out of the weather and the cold." He smiled a bit crookedly at her as he started off across the street. "And I promise that I won't take advantage of you, Sanjunana-san. I'm a school teacher, not a pervert. Promise."

Madoka smiled brightly at Gregory to help nail down his decision to help her and followed him quickly. "Thank you very much, Gregory-san," she replied as she climbed into the passenger side of his vehicle, having to use the step rail to reach the interior. "I would be glad to accompany you to your school for the morning, especially if there are more of those delicious donuts available? And please call me Madoka."

Gregory grabbed a donut for himself then handed her the box. "Sure, Madoka-san. Here, have all the donuts you want, please!" He buckled his seat belt and started the Jeep's six-cylinder gasoline engine, letting it warm up a bit before putting it in reverse and easing backwards into the street.

Madoka examined the dashboard of the vehicle with interest; it was cluttered with LED screens showing the speed of the vehicle, how much fuel it had, and all sorts of other, more esoteric, information that she assumed was essential for the driver to know. There was also a 20cm display in the center of the dash which was currently showing a street map. Madoka watched Gregory operate the metal stick that protruded up out of the floor of the vehicle between the seats while pressing and releasing pedals further up on the floor.

"Manual transmission," Gregory explained in an offhand manner after noticing her expression of puzzled interest. "It's a pain in the city, but it's the only way to go off-road. Not that I get to take it off-road much."

Madoka nodded, pretending she understood what he was talking about. It looked a lot more complicated to operate a vehicle than she had thought it would be. Then again, her entire experience with vehicles was limited to the driverless MBI mini-bus that had delivered her from MBI's headquarters just over a week ago and the dozen or so cars that had almost run her over as she tried crossing the streets in this huge city.

She helped herself to another donut and watched out the window as they made speed towards wherever it was that Gregory O'Donnell taught school on a Saturday morning. At least it was warm in the Jeep, and not raining on her. Already a vast improvement over her prospects from just a few hours ago.

The low music playing through the overhead speakers lulled her into a doze as they drove. The warmth and security relaxed her more than she expected while being alone with a strange man. But she was just so tired.

"Like a picture she was laying there, moonlight dancing off her hair…"

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

The waitress sat the check down on the table next to Gregory then turned to Madoka who was sitting opposite from Gregory in the comfortable diner booth. "Are you sure I can't bring you anything else?"

Gregory watched as Madoka turned her 10,000 watt smile onto the waitress. He was amazed at how the buxom blonde girl had turned the waitress into her willing and eager slave without even trying.

"Life really is different when you look like an idol. A really good-looking idol. Whose smile turns waitresses into puddles."

"Thank you. We do not need anything else. The food was wonderful and the service excellent, thank you so much." Madoka's light mezzo-soprano voice seemed to send the same shivers down the servers' spine that it did for Gregory.

Gregory suppressed an amused chuckle and handed the waitress his bank card to pay the bill. He expected that Madoka truly didn't want any more food. If not for the prompt service of the wait-staff her side of the table would be stacked with bowls, plates, and saucers after the incredible lunch they'd just had.

After the Saturday morning English class had been completed he'd offered to take Madoka to lunch at his favorite western-style diner. For filling up with hot food you just couldn't beat burgers and fries, coffee, and maybe a slice of pie for desert. Madoka was agreeable; she claimed to love western food, though the way she spoke of it confirmed to Gregory that she was likely a native of Japan, appearances notwithstanding.

There were certainly Europeans who had immigrated to Japan at various times in the past. Native-born Japanese citizens of Anglo decent were unusual, very unusual, but not unheard of. Gregory was dying to quiz the girl about her parents and find out what her story was. Her name was certainly Japanese, both her given name and her family name.

But she looked so Nordic, other than her diminutive height, that Gregory would have been willing to bet a month's salary that there was a lot more 'Eriksdotter' in her genes than 'Sanjunana'.

What sort of family name was 'Sanjunana' anyhow? Who names their daughter 'Thirty-Seven Madoka'?

With the waitress gone to process the payment for the bill, Madoka's smile faded. A brooding, worried, look took its place; her eyes half-lidded, and her face pensive. She absently sipped at the cup of hot coffee that she had ordered after she had gone through half of the diner's menu. She'd had a cheeseburger, fries, onion rings, a grilled-cheese sandwich on toast, a club sandwich, a dozen battered and fried mozzarella sticks, another cheeseburger, and then slices of two different kinds of pie.

Gregory was still amazed at the feat of feasting he had just witnessed. He was a fairly accomplished trencher himself, able to pack away enough food for his wife to joke about his 'tapeworm and hollow leg'. Back when his wife still made playful jokes about him.

But what he had just seen this tiny blonde girl put away was astounding.

He wisely kept his thoughts on the subject of her voracity to himself. Never mention a woman's apparent age or how much she eats. This rule had stood Gregory in good stead for many years and he did not intend to break it now. Regardless of the temptation to gape at the food that disappeared into the full-lipped mouth gracing the face of the girl across the table from him.

She was worried, he could tell. Probably about where to stay for the next few days while she tried to get her bank card and ID replaced. Gregory set his own coffee cup down on its saucer and spoke up, "I've got an idea for where you could stay until you get your feet under you again or find your friend. You could stay at our place, with my family. It's a two bedroom apartment, but we've got plenty of room."

Madoka turned her blue eyes up to look at Gregory through her sooty lashes. It was almost as adorable as when she cocked her head to the side quizzically. "You said you have a wife and a daughter. You would know best, I am sure, Gregory-san, but what would your wife say if you brought home a female house guest who she does not know?"

"Oh, you can bet that she'd have a thing or two to say about it, especially given your amazing good looks." Gregory grinned crookedly in reply. He paused to pick up his coffee cup, not noticing Madoka's surprised blink at the casual compliment. He took a sip before continuing, "But I'll bet we can talk my daughter Michelle into helping. She's close to your age, so maybe a story about how you are a friend of hers from school, your parents left you here to finish your last year but you've run into problems with a boyfriend who's turned into a stalker type pest so you need a place to stay for a little while. Long enough for the authorities to convince the young man to leave you alone and then you can return to your own home."

Gregory looked away from Madoka as he finished the proposed cover story. She had taken off her jacket when they arrived at the diner, and the way her very tight, blue, cheongsam-style shirt hugged her large firm breasts was incredibly distracting, especially when she moved like she was now, nodding her head up and down enthusiastically.

Gregory winced.

I'm a dead man; I'm a dead man walking. There's no way Karen is going to believe this story and she's going to kill me. The minute Karen sees those tits, I am a dead man.

Madoka was still nodding her head enthusiastically, "That would be wonderful, Gregory-san! Do you think your wife will believe the story? While I truly do appreciate the offer and will not deny I am in a bind, I also do not want to cause any disharmony in your home."

The earnest look on her pretty face had Gregory waving his hands to dismiss her concerns. "No, no, it'll be fine, I'm sure. Michelle will be glad to help with the cover story, and Karen will be fine with it. Besides, it's nearing Christmas; no one turns away someone in need around the Christmas holidays. That would just be wrong."

Madoka pursed her pink lips and furrowed her brows before nodding agreement. "If you are sure, Gregory-san. I only hope that Michelle-san likes me. I will make an extra effort to get on well with her so that we seem close friends."

"Good, I'm sure you'll manage just fine." Gregory smiled then tapped his cell-phone watch; the dial tone hummed immediately in his ear through the wireless earpiece he always wore when he was out of the house. He spoke to Madoka as he dialed his daughter's number, "Call her Mishi. It's a lot easier for most Japanese to pronounce than 'Michelle', like I rarely go by 'O'Donnell'. Everyone calls her Mishi."

He heard his teenaged daughter pick up the other end of the line and answer in her own excellent Japanese, "Tousan! Hi, what's up?"

"Hello Mishi-chan. I have a favor I need. Are you busy?"

Madoka smiled at Gregory from across the booth; apparently happy that she would not be sleeping in the rain and cold again. Her smile distracted Gregory so badly that he had to ask his daughter to repeat herself. This set Madoka into an even more distracting, chest-jiggling, giggle fit.

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

"Mom, it'll only be for a while! Mado-chan doesn't have anywhere else to go, and her jerk boyfriend won't leave her alone! Dad said it was okay if it was okay with you, please?"

Gregory finished hanging his coat in the hall closet, trying to ignore the daggers his wife was staring at him for that last bit. He usually avoided getting into that particular problem, having learned that "Dad said it was okay" was a quick trip to the doghouse for him with Karen, but in this case, it was a necessary evil.

Having Mishi asking while Madoka stood right there was extra leverage, insuring Karen would agree to the request, but also guaranteeing she would be in a piss-poor mood about it. And she would take that out on Gregory more than Mishi, as Gregory well knew. But, what else could he do? There was no way in hell Karen would normally go along with some eighteen-year-old female stranger staying with them. Especially one that looked like Madoka.

Thankfully, Mishi had taken right to the plot and agreed immediately to help Madoka. She had thrown herself entirely into the plan to convince Mom to okay Madoka moving in for a short while.

Karen cast a baleful eye at the short, blonde-haired, girl who was huddling in the entryway behind Mishi. Madoka had her hands in her jacket pockets and had her shoulders hunched up, trying to look small and harmless. Gregory was glad she hadn't taken off the jacket; one look at the form fitting silk cheongsam and the large breasts the silk outlined, and there was no force on earth that would get an agreement from Karen.

With a glare at Gregory, who brushed by the gathering in the entryway on his way to the bedroom to change out of his work clothes, Karen grumbled her assent. "Okay, fine, Michelle. Hello, Madoka, I'm sorry you're having such a difficult time with things. Why on earth did your parents leave you alone while they traveled?"

Madoka kept her eyes down as she answered, "Thank you Karen-san. My parents have made a habit of leaving me to care for myself since I was thirteen. It has never been a problem before but, well…"

Karen grimaced at the answer. "Well, I hate second guessing people but it doesn't seem right to leave a teenage girl all alone like that. How is your English? We have a rule to keep to English inside the apartment, though we are all fluent in Japanese. I don't want Michelle to forget our language by the time we go home."

Gregory smirked at that, glad his wife could not see it. The reason for the English in the home rule was Karen, not Mishi. When they first moved to Japan it was stressful for Karen, trying to speak Japanese all the time at her job with the Headquarters of the Japanese Red Cross. She needed some place to relax and not have the stress of speaking a foreign language. Moreover, she was not as fluent as Mishi or Gregory, a point that rubbed her wrong even after five years in Japan.

As Gregory walked into the kitchen to check and see if there was any hot coffee ready, he overheard Madoka's reply in perfect American English.

"I understand, Miss Karen. I do speak English and look forward to the opportunity to practice it. Thank you so very much for letting me stay in your home."

Gregory wondered at the blonde girl's fluency with English. She spoke American English so perfectly that he now wondered if she had learned Japanese as a second language. But her Japanese was as perfect as her English!

He had to find out what this girl's story was.

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

"Mishi, that was a delicious dinner. Do you often help cook?"

Madoka lay on her stomach, propped up on her elbows on the comfortable queen sized bed in Mishi's bedroom. It was late, clean up after dinner was finished, showers were taken, and pajamas found and put on. Mishi had shown Madoka the small fish tank in her bedroom with her two goldfish, proudly boasting that she'd had them for over two years and weren't they awesome?

Madoka was tired. She knew she would have little trouble sleeping, even if she was sharing a bed with a girl she just met today. Compared to sleeping in an alleyway in the rain in freezing temperatures this was heavenly. The bed was western style instead of a futon and was large and very comfortable.

Mishi, sitting cross-legged nearby on the bed and flipping through a fashion magazine, nodded absently, "Yeah, I help most nights. Once I realized how big a deal Japanese boys, and their mothers, make about girls knowing how to cook I got motivated. It's so odd. You know, in America no one really cares if someone knows how to cook food from scratch. Some girls, some boys, enjoy doing it so they learn how, most don't. It's just not a big thing in the west. Here you can lose a boyfriend in a second if his mother thinks you can't cook. It's crazy. And since I'm American I had to be able to cook traditional Japanese better than any other girl in my class, just to keep someone's okasan from running me off right away."

Madoka did not reply to that, instead she considered what Mishi had said, and wondered about cultural biases and the blind spots they cause. Even though Madoka had never been allowed into the world outside the MBI laboratories and dorms she had been raised by people who had certain cultural biases so she had no doubt she herself was affected by them. Perhaps even more so than if she had been raised in the 'real world', since all of the Sekirei had such limited access to social instruction what little they were exposed to likely had an outsized influence on their worldview.

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Mishi watched the pretty blonde out of the corner of her eye as she pretended to read the fashion magazine. Madoka was the prettiest girl Mishi had ever seen, in person or in movies or in a magazine or on TV. The mystery of how her Dad came to know the girl was driving Mishi crazy. There was no way the story he gave about her being homeless was straight.

Madoka was way too pretty to be anything except an idol. She should be on the cover of every magazine, staring in movies, and selling make-up to teenage Japanese girls who would kill for the perfect creamy skin, sky-blue eyes, and pouty pink lips the other girl was blessed with.

Not to mention the narrow waist, flat stomach, perky round butt, and incredible bounty of breasts she had.

Mishi pulled her pajama shirt closer around her own slender body and sighed. In a country where western looks were coveted, she had to be cursed with a short, slim, A-cup, body, just like most of her Japanese class-mates. She knew she had a great ass, but… glancing again at the tight tank top Madoka wore as pajamas and how the blonde was all but spilling out of the terminally stretched fabric, Mishi just shook her head in self-disgust. It just wasn't fair! And she was tired of being hit on by all the lolicons, too!

Mishi shook her head sharply; she had been ogling Madoka's breasts for some minutes without realizing it. And not just in an "academic interest" sort of way, either!

Mishi had "come out" to her parents last year just after she turned fifteen, bravely revealing to them her dark sexual secret: she was bi-sexual and attracted to girls almost as much as she was attracted to boys. It had taken weeks to build up the courage to tell her very socially liberal yet still Catholic parents this deep, dark, secret about herself. But honesty and being true to herself impelled her to tell them that sometimes she thought kissing a pretty girl would be fun.

It was a difficult confession to make, and her parents' reaction to it was horrifying to the then-fifteen-year-old.

She had braced herself for condemnation and for being judged harshly, for reminders of how their Catholic faith considered such things to be a moral sin and she would burn in hell forever if she ever kissed a pretty girl. She was ready to face such harsh judgments from her parents.

What she wasn't ready for was both of them shrugging their shoulders and saying, "That's nice sweetie. We'd like to meet your girlfriend".

She didn't have a girlfriend! She hadn't ever had one, not like that! She'd never kissed a girl like that either! It was just something she thought might be fun, so she had to confess her dark sexual secret to her parents, to 'come out of the closet' as a possibly mildly bi-sexual teenage girl and face all of the parental and social approbation that came with such deviancy!

It was just really unfair that her parents reacted in such a way. There was no drama, no recriminations, no threats of hellfire or damnation, no being grounded for her personal life choices, nothing! The entire thing was such a horrible disappointment to Mishi that she pretty much tried to forget it ever happened.

Yet here she found herself ogling Mado's really impressive boobs, which were straining the cotton teal-colored tank top she had borrowed from Mishi's sleep-shirt drawer. And not just looking, but wondering what they'd feel like if she squeezed them!

Before she could work up a good blush in response to this self-realization, Mishi noticed that Madoka's face was pale, with a rather horrified expression upon it. Mishi looked up to meet Madoka's eyes questioningly. Oh no, had Madoka noticed her staring?

"Mado? What is it?" Ohmygodshesawmestaringatherboobs!

Madoka covered her mouth with a hand and stared at Mishi for a moment then gestured vaguely towards the closed door of the bedroom. "Can you not hear that, Mishi?"

Mishi stopped and listened, quickly enough realizing what it was that Madoka was overhearing through the closed door. Her parents were arguing in their bedroom and Mom's voice was loud enough to make out some of what was being said.

Mishi almost sighed in relief, glad that Madoka was not about to call her out for being a peeping pervert. She then sat up and took one of Madoka's hands, gently holding the blonde's slender fingers.

"Mado-chan, you really must be Japanese. Yes, my parents are arguing, in their bedroom. Yes, Mom doesn't think much about how her voice carries when she is mad and gets a good head of steam going. It's also just not that big a deal, Mado, though I know if this were a Japanese household such a thing would be a sign of a coming apocalypse. I promise, in an American household it might be a little embarrassing to have your parents' argument overheard by a friend but it's not the kind of shameful terrible thing it would be in a Japanese home. Just tune them out, that's what I do. Everything will be fine by morning. It's just not a big deal."

Mishi smiled at Madoka, trying to show the pretty blonde that she herself was not worried about the fact that her Mom was verbally thrashing Dad for giving permission without asking her first. And for putting her in a difficult position and no doubt a laundry list of other sins which Dad hadn't had a chance to properly beg forgiveness for lately. Her Dad was enough of a jerk, occasionally, to have a backlog of sins he'd not been called to account for. Mom made sure he didn't go too long in such a state.

Madoka nodded reluctantly then replied, "If you say so Mishi. But still I am terribly sorry for bringing such discord into your home! I should get my clothes and leave!"

"No, Mado, that isn't necessary!" Mishi tried again, this time with a wide grin. "Believe me. Dad knew Mom would be pissed about the way we worked her for permission for you to stay over the holidays. He knew she'd be pissed and did it anyway, so really, if you left he'd be getting raked over the coals for nothing. Can't have that, right?"

The blonde girl nodded reluctantly again, this time squeezing Mishi's fingers gently and smiling a little in response to Mishi's wide grin. "I am sure you know best, Mishi."

"Yes, exactly! See, I know best! So you're just staying right here in bed with me tonight!" Mishi blushed then continued quickly, "And tomorrow we'll do like Dad said. We've got his credit card and we're going to go do some shopping for you some clothes! Since there is absolutely no way you're going to fit into one of my bras. Oh, it will be fun! Now, turn up the volume on the music so we can't hear them arguing and let's get some sleep, hm?"

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Sunday proved to be sunny though the temperature still required jackets and sweaters. The snow of the last few days was sticking to the shaded parts of the Shibuya Ward shopping district and the sky was startlingly blue as Madoka and Mishi stepped off the commuter train after a short ride from the station near the O'Donnell's apartment.

Madoka's blonde hair shined in the noontime sun, bouncy and full, spreading around her pink-jacket-clad shoulders. Even though Madoka was no taller than Mishi, the American girl was not worried about losing track of Madoka, given her hair was like a beacon amid the sea of blue-black-haired Japanese that filled the squares and walkways of the very modern shopping district she had chosen for their mission today.

The two girls quickly made their way from the commuter train depot towards the first shop on Mishi's list, 'Bare Necessities'.

"Tousan okayed us to spend fifty-thousand yen on the credit card, which should be enough to get the basics for you, Mado-chan. Since I doubt you are comfortable borrowing my panties and there's just no way you can use my bras, we'll take care of those first. Besides, we've got about an hour before my boyfriend, Tomo, said he will be joining us and I'll be damned if he's going underwear shopping with you as the model. No offense, but come on, I could never let Tomo see me naked again if he saw you trying on sexy underclothes."

Mishi laughed self-deprecatingly at that then laughed even louder at the look of shock on Madoka's face. Quickly covering her mouth with her hand, Mishi tried to reign in her American tendency to laugh loudly in public though Madoka's continuing embarrassment was not making it easy.

Madoka leaned in close and whispered, "Again? You mean you and your boyfriend have… done it? Really?"

Mishi put an arm around Madoka's shoulders and pulled her close as they walked towards 'Bare Necessities'. She grinned conspiratorially and answered, "Well, yeah, Mado-chan. Tomo and I have been together for six months and he's my boyfriend. Of course we 'do it' as often as he can get me alone! The only guys at my school who'd stay with a girl who didn't put out after that long are hopeless otaku's with acne and body odor. What was it like where you went to school? Are you saying you've never had sex?"

Madoka looked down at the pavement as they walked, the blush on her cheeks answering the question for her.

"Oh my god, seriously?" Mishi giggled and pulled Madoka into a one armed hug and said, "Hey, don't be embarrassed! I'm just kind of amazed given how gorgeous you are. You must have had every guy in your school chasing after you, plus all the teachers, the administrators, the bus driver, movie stars, royalty…"

The blonde Sekirei walked with Mishi's arm around her shoulders for a moment then asked, quietly, "You only have sex with your boyfriend because he would leave you if you did not?"

Mishi blinked in shock. Slowing their pace, she leaned close to Madoka's ear and said, "No, I wouldn't put it that way, not really. I mean, sure, Tomo is a great guy and good looking and I like him a whole lot… and he wants to have sex so after we saw each other for a while I agreed to do it with him. Honestly, if he'd never pushed for it we'd probably not be having sex but that's the way it is with all guys, right? I mean, they want what we've got and we're the ones who decide when and if they can have it. It's not like we're the ones chasing after what they've got between their legs, right? I mean, I guess some girls do, but they're the sluts, right?"

Madoka's cheeks were blazing red with embarrassment, bringing Mishi's good humor back to the fore.

With her new friend's obvious embarrassment with the subject Mishi dropped it, though she mentally marked this down as another oddity about the beautiful blonde.

"I am very sorry for all of this trouble, Mishi-san. Truly, you and Gregory-san do not need to do all this for me. It is more than enough that you are giving me shelter until I can find my friend who was supposed to meet me here in Shin Tokyo, spending money on me is too…"

Madoka did not get to finish her speech, as Mishi was waving her off while dragging the buxom girl by the hand towards the 'Bare Necessities' storefront.

"No, no, Mado-chan! Tousan said it was no trouble, and I'm saying it's no trouble too, so you'll just have to accept that your fate is to model sexy underwear for me for the next hour! Come on!"

Letting the American girl drag her along, Madoka accepted the inevitable and resigned herself to cooperating. "We cannot spend all of Gregory-san's money on underwear, Mishi-san! Some shirts and pants and maybe some shoes would be a good idea too, would it not?"

Mishi stopped right outside of the 'Bare Necessities' door, eyes gleaming in anticipation. "Yes! Genius! Shoes! We'll save that for last so that Tomo can be here for it! That'll show him, inviting himself along for our girls' day out shopping! Hah! Great thinking, Mado-chan!"

Visions of her boyfriend suffering through endless shoe shopping cheering her even more, Mishi took Madoka's hand again and pulled her through the doors for an hour of exploring undergarments that Mishi had always coveted but did not have the body to wear, herself.

But Madoka did! And judging by how the store's sales staff was already queuing up to serve the blonde beauty, Mishi could tell this was going to be great!

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

"I am really very sorry, Mishi-san. Please forgive me."

Madoka bowed her head humbly and waited for Mishi's response. The day had gone so well. Shopping with Mishi had been great fun until Mishi's boyfriend Tomo had joined them at the shoe store, and then everything had gone out of control. Madoka could not figure out what she could have done to change the outcome of the afternoon, but Mishi was mad at her so Madoka concluded that apologizing was the best plan, even if she didn't really understand what she could have done wrong.

Mishi was sitting at the head of her bed with her tablet in hand, pounding out letters on the pad with harder-than-necessary finger taps. She tried to ignore Madoka's apology and bowed head but after a few moments sighed and tossed the tablet onto the bedcover. Madoka waited, head still bowed in apology.

  
"We're in the apartment, so use English, Mado. And… it wasn't your fault. You didn't really do anything wrong; If anyone should apologize it's me. I shouldn't have gotten mad at you just because my boyfriend is a jerk and a pervert."

Madoka looked up through the hair that had fallen forward over her face to see if the angry expression Mishi had worn for the last several hours had changed. To her relief the slender American girl did not look mad anymore, just resigned and a bit tired.

Switching to English, Madoka tried again to apologize. "Still, Mishi, I caused such problems with you and your boyfriend. If I had not been there you would have had a much more pleasant day with Tomo."

Mishi just shook her head, her short, light brown hair swaying about. "No, Mado. I know I've been acting like it was your fault, but it wasn't. I should have figured what would happen if my boyfriend spent any time around you. Of course he was going to look and flirt and pay attention to you instead of me. You're like an idol; you're just too pretty to be resisted. But it'll be a cold day in hell before he gets another blowjob from me, I can tell you that."

  
Madoka replied in a tiny voice, sounding like she might faint at any moment at her American friend's bluntness, "I am very sorry…"

"Nyeh, let's just forget it, Mado." Mishi waved her hand dismissively then continued, "Guys are like that. I'm sorry I was cross with you about it, so let's just forget it and move on, okay?"

The blonde girl nodded agreement. "If you say so, Mishi. What do you want to do this evening?"

"Well… you can try on all the underwear we bought for you! Come on, try this one on first!"

Madoka shook her head and bowed to the inevitable, stripping off her jeans and shirt to entertain Mishi's underwear fetish. Posing in almost nothing for Mishi's fun was a lot better than her American friend sullenly ignoring her.

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Late the next night Gregory looked up from his computer screen at the sound of the patio door sliding open. He probably should already have gone to bed, but Madoka had been out all evening and he was waiting up for her, though he'd not admit it. He was just up late playing 'World of GuildWars III', that's all.

Really.

Madoka slipped into the living room of the O'Donnell's apartment from the patio and pulled the sliding glass door shut behind her. She gave a little start when she noticed Gregory at his computer desk. Gregory smiled in response to the guilty-jump.

"Hey, Madoka. There's dinner in the microwave. Mishi put a plate together for you. If you're hungry you might want to warm it up first."

Peeling off her jacket, Madoka crossed the room to hang the covering in the hall closet. Her cheeks were pink from the cold night air and she wouldn't meet Gregory's eyes. As she hung up her coat she quietly said, in her perfect American English, "I am sorry to be so late, Gregory. I was out looking for my friend and time got away from me. I did not realize how late it was until it was already 10pm."

Gregory shook his head and turned to the computer screen to log out of his game, "It's okay, Mado; you're a grown woman. You don't answer to me. If you needed to be out late you needed to be out late. If it's going to happen much I might need to give you a key to the front door though. Wouldn't want you to have to sneak in through a window if it was late enough that I was already asleep and the patio door locked for the night, eh?"

Madoka smiled at this then went into the kitchen.

Gregory finished logging out of 'World of GuildWars III' and turned off the monitor of his desktop computer. The big matte-black computer was something of an anachronism, what with most people using tablets or wrist-phones or, in the other direction, large 3-d tanks, to play games or browse around the web. Gregory couldn't completely let go of his old-school desktop system, even if it had been upgraded in so many ways that it barely bore any resemblance to the computers he grew up using. He used it for gaming and as a storage server for his photography hobby, with automatic backup to a half dozen cloud server services running at all times.

Turning away from his desk, Gregory noticed Madoka was standing in the kitchen, staring at the microwave. He stood and walked into the kitchen, leaning past her to push the 'Reheat Sensor' button, then he smiled down at his pretty blonde houseguest, struggling mightily to meet her eyes instead of looking down the amazing cleavage of her v-cut shirt. "It'll beep when it's warm now."

Madoka turned her face up towards the much taller Gregory and smiled, saying "Thank you Gregory. For everything, truly." Her cheeks were still pink from the cold night air, giving her an innocent and charming blush. Madoka's physical closeness and the obvious gratitude shining from her face made Gregory's heart skip a beat.

Gregory retreated (and he did not for a second lie to himself that it wasn't a retreat) to the living room where he grabbed his cigarettes and stepped out onto the patio to enjoy the freezing cold night air. Watching the empty blue-lit street from behind the chest-high patio fence, he lit a cigarette and took a deep, satisfying, draw of the tobacco smoke.

Madoka had only been staying with them for two days and already Gregory found it difficult to keep his eyes off her when she was in the same room. It was a lot easier when Karen was around; Gregory didn't want his wife catching him ogling their houseguest. Karen was already prickly and touchy about the subject of Madoka as it was. It wouldn't be worth Gregory's life to get caught leering at Madoka's incredibly shapely body, her perfect, tight ass, her gorgeous…

"Gah!" Gregory lightly knocked his forehead into the top rail of the patio fence repeatedly. "Just… gah!"

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Later in the week found Mishi and Madoka lying on Mishi's bed finishing a movie on the wall monitor Mishi had in her room. They were both comfortably attired in their sleeping clothes; Mishi in her usual tight cotton tank and low-slung loose-fitting sweatpants and Madoka in an even tighter teal-colored tank top and loose-fitting short-shorts.

As Mishi used her tablet to turn off the big wall-mounted monitor and disconnect from the media server in the living room she said, "Mado, I can't believe you'd never seen 'Lost and Delirious', it's a classic!"

Madoka remained leaning against the headboard of Mishi's bed, her blue eyes wide and watery from unshed tears over the tragic movie. "No, I had not seen that movie before. It was very… good, Mishi. I have never seen a movie like that."

Mishi tapped her tablet and queued up her sleeping music list for the room's speakers, the sounds of J-pop filled the bedroom. She was blushing a bit after watching the movie with Madoka. The affair between the two female leads was really lovely, and she wanted to share the movie with Madoka, but now she felt a little uncomfortable. She wasn't sure how Madoka would react to the subject matter or to the erotic scenes in the movie. Being so forward, even in such a limited way, was rather outside of Mishi's comfort zone. While still fiddling with the tablet's controls for the room's speakers, she asked, "What did you think?"

"I thought it was beautiful," Madoka said softly. "I do not understand why Tori and Paulie could not be together though. They loved each other, but Tori told her they could never be, and then Paulie died. Why did Tori tell her that? Why did Paulie kill herself?"

  
Mishi set her tablet on the bedside table and moved up next to Madoka, pulling the sheets back for the two of them. With the lights off and only the dim illumination of Mishi's tablet to show anything, Mishi and Madoka laid down and faced each other.

Mishi quietly answered Madoka's question, "Well, Tori broke up with Paulie because Tori's family would never accept her loving a girl. Lots of people used to think that two people of the same gender loving each other was wrong. They still do, really, but it's not as bad now as it used to be, I don't think. Sometimes love isn't enough, I guess." Mishi watched Madoka's face for any sign that the blonde girl was averse to same-gender relationships. "And Paulie died because she couldn't imagine living her life without Tori. Which is really kind of extreme, you know, most people wouldn't go that far, really. But I guess it makes for a better story if she kills herself instead of just going on and meeting another girlfriend years later or something."

Madoka lay on her side, looking at Mishi's face in the dim light, enjoying the tingling sensation in her belly as she looked into her American friend's eyes. She murmured, "Well, I think that is just wrong. They loved each other they should have been free to live as they wanted. It was very sad, at the end."

Mishi nodded in agreement, "I agree. But, Mado, is your family okay with same sex relationships? They would be okay if you had a girlfriend instead of marrying a guy?"

Madoka replied, hesitantly, "Some of the older… aunt's might have said something about not keeping the relationships girls had, because when we grew up we had to find… husbands and they would be angry if they thought their… wife also liked girls?"

Mishi nodded that she understood, to Madoka's obvious relief. Mishi said, "Well, old aunties are too conservative to know how the world really works nowadays. You can't pay too much attention to what they might think. Really, everyone should be able to follow the road that leads to their own happiness. Paulie and Tori would have lived happily all their lives if Tori hadn't spent so much time worrying about what her family thought."

Madoka said, "Yes, that is exactly so. If you find the person you are destined to be with, nothing else should really matter. I did like the movie, Mishi. Thank you for sharing it with me."

Mishi felt her cheeks get hot; Madoka's appreciation and the way the dim light illuminated the blonde's perfectly beautiful face made the young American girl almost breathless. She was both incredibly attracted to Madoka and scared of how intense that attraction was. It was on a completely different level than how she felt about her boyfriend and she'd had sex with him so she considered her relationship with Tomo to be pretty serious. But the way she felt when she looked at Madoka was something else entirely.

"I'm glad you liked it, Mado. It really is one of my favorite movies." Mishi snuggled down into the blankets then looked back at Madoka, making up her mind to ask the question that had been bothering her all week. "Hey, Mado, you have to answer me a question. And you have to promise to tell me the truth, okay?"

Nodding reluctantly, Madoka said "Okay, I will tell you the truth. What is it?"

"What is it with you and my Dad? You can tell me, I won't tell anyone, I swear! No way he just found you at a donut shop needing a place to stay. Are you two… are you lovers?" Mishi barely stumbled over asking the question, difficult as it was to even think of her Dad and sex in the same sentence. Much less the way-long odds of her Dad scoring with a girl like Madoka, there just wasn't any way. Right? And cheating on Mom? Though Mishi could imagine any guy cheating if it was Madoka they had the chance with, even her Dad.

Madoka laughed, shaking her head. "No! No, he really did tell the truth. I met him outside the donut shop he stops at on Saturday mornings. No, he is very nice, and I am very glad he has offered me a place to stay with your family while I get things straightened out but no, we are not, um, involved, like that. He is way too old, do you not think? He is nice, and I have caught him looking a few times, but no, that would be just too gross really. With a guy that old?"

Mishi giggled and nodded, relieved that Madoka wasn't having an affair with her Dad. Not only did that make her feel better about her Dad not cheating on her Mom, but it meant that Madoka was unattached and available for Mishi to convince her to give her a chance!

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Gregory, ear to the slightly open door of his daughter's bedroom, guiltily listened to Madoka's heartfelt denial of any interest in Mishi's old man. Significant emphasis on "old".

"See? That's what you deserve, Greg, listening in because you thought you heard someone say 'Dad'. See, you feel a hundred times worse now, don't ya. Idiot."

Shaking his head ruefully and wearing a self-deprecating smirk, he returned to bed, having already gone to the kitchen for a late night snack. Long experience in being around teenage girls as a high school teacher had taught him that forty-year-old guys are not what eighteen-year-old girls are looking for, no matter how deluded the forty-year-old man may be. He had seen a few of his peers in teaching fool themselves into thinking the occasional seventeen- or eighteen-year-old Senior who amused herself by practiced flirting skills on their teacher really meant what they were hinting at. It never ended well for the teacher and self-delusion of that sort was definitely an occupational hazard for anyone teaching senior level classes in any high school.

It was such a common risk that Administrators had to consider it when hiring teachers for Junior and Senior level classes. Gregory, at only thirty-five when he was hired, was certainly in the high-risk profile, but his being married for 15 years (at that time), and with children, put him into the "worth taking a chance on" pile of applications, instead of the "no way in hell" pile.

Moreover, beyond his dedication to his twenty years of married life and his family, Gregory knew better than to fool himself like that. Forty-year-old guys like himself were not what beautiful young women are looking for. Moreover, a young woman like Madoka, so obviously smart as well as incredibly gorgeous, deserved the very best and she would likely get it. She would not end up with some old and "gross" schoolteacher!

Refusing to pay any attention to the pang deep in his heart, stifling the useless wish that he could be twenty again so that he wouldn't be "gross", Gregory pulled the blanket up around his shoulders, his wife's back to him as usual, and tried to get to sleep.

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Started Sep 9 2013  
Completed Sep 27 2014  
Posted May 7 2015


	3. NGFOM 1.3 - The Truth Comes Out

**No Game For Old Men**

NGFOM 1.3 – The Truth Comes Out

* * *

 o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Thursday, December 19th, 2019  
Tokyo Metro High School, Shibuya Ward, Shin Tokyo

 

 

One week to go until the winter school break began; Gregory O'Donnell was looking forward to the time off. Gregory loved his work at Tokyo Metro High, teaching Senior English as well as one honors Junior English course. He found the last week of each term to be the best part of the school experience. Finals exams pressures at the level he taught were immense for his students; parents, other family, peers, even the self-applied pressure of personal ambition, all conspired to put the Senior English students, and his one Junior Honors class, under a degree of stress that they had likely never encountered in their lives.

Gregory glanced at the five-part photo frame which he placed on the teacher's desk in each room he taught when he arrived at that classroom each day, each frame containing a photo he had taken which meant something to him in regards to his profession. This time of year the photo his eye drifted to was the student on the train at final's time. The young man in the photo was aboard a crowded train, sitting on his heels in the aisle since there was no room on the seats for him. He had his forehead resting on the handle of his umbrella and one hand holding onto the chrome bar mounted to the floor and ceiling of the train for passengers to steady themselves with. The student had his eyes closed, his uniform was neat and pressed, his satchel bulging with schoolwork waiting to be done. And hanging off the front of the satchel was a small plushy teddy bear, seemingly out of place with the rest of the image.

To Gregory, the photo exemplified the great anxiety his students experienced, especially at semester finals. The adult expectations that pressed down upon people who were often still children with teddy bears, inside.

The strain his students were under often revealed previously hidden elements of their character. Who among them would dig deep and find reserves that they were previously unaware of, allowing them to study that extra hour, remember just that much more vocabulary, comprehend that one additional obscure grammatical rule?

Who would dig deep and find… nothing? No hidden reserves, no extra insight, no heretofore unknown gift for languages. No one spoke of this sort of student. It was assumed by everyone that all students would prosper in a high pressure, high stakes, testing environment if they were convinced of the utter seriousness of the exams, if they believed in their hearts that their entire future depended on them doing well on their tests.

However, it just wasn't true. Not all students _had_ hidden reserves or unknown talents that were just waiting the right time to be revealed. In fact quite a few were already operating at 100% of their capability, just to keep the grades they were already making. Especially in a difficult class such as Gregory O'Donnell's English Language course. Would this student crack under the pressure? Would they fall to the temptation of cheating? Would they learn that it's not possible to exceed your potential?

_That_ was a lesson that many students learned too late or never. It was nevertheless a truth Gregory tried to help his students realize: A person cannot exceed their potential. If it seems they exceeded their potential, the only thing that meant was that an inaccurate assessment of the person's potential had originally been made.

Sometimes a person was a B student in English because that was all they could manage. Gregory always included a lecture this time of year in which he explained to his students that he himself was a B student in both High School and College level Calculus. No matter how much effort he invested, he never achieved a better grade in Calculus though of course at the time he had no real way to know that.  So he kept putting more and more of his time into trying to improve his Calculus grade and eventually he had no time with which to excel at the subjects he was gifted in, namely Languages.

Gregory had been fortunate to have a High School teacher who explained to him that he had likely found the limits of his potential in Calculus. This understanding, this acknowledgment of his own limitations, allowed Gregory to spend his time more wisely in efforts to excel in subjects he could still improve in.

A willingness to accept a B in Calculus allowed him the freed up resources to achieve Honors in Languages. And that had mattered far more than if he had managed to increase his Calculus grade by a percentage or two.

Gregory kept his eye out for the handful of such students in each of his classes for whom the limits of their own potential was what kept them from higher grades and better test results. Those students were the ones he made a point to council before each semester's final exams, making sure they understood that beating ones head against a wall was _not_ actually good academics. No matter how many speeches about 'giving 110%' they were subjected to by other teachers or their parents or their peers, at least _one_ authority figure was going to speak the truth to them. At least _one_ teacher would explain to them that having a realistic understanding of who they were and what their abilities truly were would make them far better academics than pissing into the wind would.

At which point the student would usually gape at their straight-laced English Language teacher for using such a colorful idiom. But it got the point across.

All of the students at Tokyo Metro High were used to the pressure of high stakes testing: just getting into the school required them each to pass the High School Entrance Exams with very high marks. Tokyo Metro wasn't the most prestigious High School in Japan, or even in Shin Tokyo itself, but it was certainly in the top 5% nationwide, with only three other High Schools in Shin Tokyo rating higher. As there were 45 High Schools in Shin Tokyo Gregory felt very fortunate to have landed his position at Tokyo Metro.

Gregory wasn't in charge of the English Department but there was only one person above him in the organizational chart for the Department.  Azama Yo was a young and progressive Department Head who valued Gregory greatly and did not hesitate to use Gregory as the (green-eyed, blond-haired) face of the school's English Department.

Gregory understood and did not take offense. If it helped the English Department, it helped the school. And if it helped the school then it helped Gregory O'Donnell.

The previous teacher who had held the position that Gregory now enjoyed had arranged for herself the luxury of her own classroom. Gregory knew that such a perk was greatly desired by the teachers in every High School in Japan, so when he first arrived he shocked his peers by requesting the private classroom for Senior English be used for other purposes as best determined by the English Department Head. He would be honored to teach his students in their Homerooms.

While his peers thought he was crazy for giving up a permanent classroom his immediate superior viewed this as not only humble and gracious on the part of his new American teacher but also realized Gregory O'Donnell was making an effort to prove his priorities were to the school and not only to his own, personal, benefit. It was a move that was more Japanese than Japanese.

Ever since that day, Gregory was in his boss's good books.

Besides, teaching English did not require so much in the way of supplies and fixtures that its own room was needed, not with the sort of technology available in Japan in 2020 A.D.

Gregory sat at the Homeroom teacher's desk in Room 210, watching as his last class of the day (the Junior Honors class) wrapped up their pre-exam practice tests. Gregory would spend most of tonight reviewing the practice tests so that he could give his students the results before the weekend. That way they would have the weekend to study for their term finals knowing what they needed to focus on.

It would make for a very long night but it was one of the things Gregory felt he owed his students. They were all working very hard; the least he could do was to make sure they were working on the right things.

Carefully checking the screen on his school-issued tablet to make sure all of the students practice tests were logged and locked down on the storage server, Gregory absently waved to the classroom President as she exited the Homeroom.

One convenient aspect of the Junior Honors English class was that there were no more classes after. The classroom student President did a very good job of making sure the room was clean and ready for the next day so the Homeroom teacher herself had no reason to return to the classroom to inspect it after the last class, Gregory's. So she had the habit of leaving the campus directly from the Teacher's Lounge right as the last bell rang for the day, allowing Gregory to wrap up his day in the peace and solitude of her classroom. Far preferable to having to pack himself to the teacher's lounge to take care of last minute business at his little-used cubicle desk before going home.  It was an arrangement that suited both the Honors Homeroom teacher and Gregory.

Making sure the locked and logged practice tests were now all duplicated on his own tablet's internal memory as well as backed up to one of his own cloud storage accounts, Gregory then put the school tablet into his briefcase and locked the case up. Gregory then walked around the classroom to make sure the juniors had prepared everything for the next day's classes. As he finished his circuit of the room he was shocked to see Sanjunana Madoka standing at the door of his classroom.

"Madoka? What in the world are you doing here?" Gregory was shocked out of his manners. It was almost unheard of that someone not in school uniform be wandering around the school campus; either in school uniform or carrying a clearly displayed Staff ID. It was not impossible to sneak in but it certainly _would_ require sneaking.

Gregory waved Madoka into the room, belatedly noticing the stress and worry in her expression and body language. Gregory could only shake his head as he noticed that even these negative emotions were displayed in the most appealing way possible on Madoka's face. He would bet that she was one of those rare females who could look beautiful even while weeping.

"I am very sorry to have intruded on your workplace, Gregory-san. But I was not far from here when I encountered someone who I had to get away from, someone I had to hide from, and I did not know anywhere else I could flee to where I might be safe." Madoka crossed the room while she spoke and Gregory allowed himself the guilty pleasure of watching her walk. The natural grace the young woman displayed in as simple a task as walking across a classroom was a joy to behold. The way she filled out a pair of tight blue jeans was an equal joy he had to admit.

Truly, a guilty pleasure.

She looked out the second floor windows that overlooked the main courtyard of the school and beyond that provided a nice view of Shibuya Ward in late afternoon sun, watching not only the sidewalks below but also the rooftops of the opposite wing of the school, across the courtyard.

Gregory closed the door to the classroom to insure no late passerby overheard whatever Madoka needed to tell him, then moved to lean against the front of the teacher's desk. His jacket was already on, his briefcase was packed; he only needed to grab the case to be ready to leave the school. He watched Madoka scan the rooftops of Tokyo Metro High and realized whatever secrets his somewhat mysterious houseguest had been keeping were possibly coming home to roost. He hoped those secrets did not cost him and his family more than they could afford.

"Mado-chan, how about you tell me what's going on? I know you've got bigger problems than just losing your wallet and having a friend who left you high and dry in Shin Tokyo. I haven't pressured you for your secrets because they are your secrets but…" Gregory fell silent, waiting to hear what the beautiful blonde at the classroom window would say.

Madoka remained silent for several minutes, obviously gathering her thoughts. She looked away from the window and met Gregory's eyes and it seemed as though she were trying, desperately, to make a terribly important decision. She looked away from Gregory and sighed resignedly, then walked over to stand next to the teacher's desk, where she began nervously adjusting the position of the various items on the desk.

She spoke, quietly, not looking up at Gregory. "If I tell you, you will very likely think me insane. Or a liar."

Madoka unzipped her pink, puffy, jacket, then pulled it off and draped it across the back of the teacher's chair. She then pulled the tight fitting long-sleeved t-shirt she was wearing down to straighten it, which had the coincidental effect of prominently showing off her amazingly firm, high, and large, breasts.

It seemed to Gregory, from careful observation over the past week, that a full fifty percent of all Madoka's movements and postures had the coincidental effect of prominently showing off her amazingly firm, high, and large, breasts.

However, on the one hand, he admitted he _might_ be a biased observer of the phenomenon. On the _other_ hand, he had caught his _daughter_ eyeballing Madoka's accidental and coincidental mammary show just yesterday, so he gave himself the benefit of the doubt. It _might_ not just be him.

And wasn't _that_ an awkward meeting of the eyes, when Mishi looked over and caught _him_ catching _her_ ogling The Rack? Gregory, of course, reacted as only a father could in that situation: he grinned ear-to-ear at his teen daughter, who was, appropriately, mortified to within an inch of her life.

Gregory snapped his eyes upwards as Madoka began to turn to face him.

Gregory had become quite good at snapping his eyes upwards around Madoka. He hoped.

She turned to look at Gregory and met his green-eyed stare with her own sky-blue gaze. Sky-blue eyes which showed a level of fatigue and worry that Gregory had not seen from Madoka before. It looked like another person Gregory knew might be learning about limits and potential and how just working harder and wishing harder will not make the impossible happen.

"Or you might even believe me. That is probably the scariest possibility. You would have to be half-mad yourself to believe my story, Gregory-san. Unfortunately, I just cannot keep this a secret anymore and in all truth… what I have to say will likely be common knowledge the world over within a few months. There is really no way to keep the truth bottled up, not now, not with the Plan starting here in Shin Tokyo."

Gregory couldn't help but notice that Madoka still hadn't told him anything. Whatever her secrets they must be far bigger than the wilder scenarios he had imagined for worst-case: that she was involved in drug running, or was the escaped love-slave of a powerful Yakuza lord. Gregory propped one leg up on the desk and turned a bit to watch the young woman's face as she struggled with getting the words out. He waited patiently; one of the benefits of raising his own kids through teenager-hood was that he had learned patience when it came to getting a secret out of them. And watching Madoka's face was never difficult, so the wait was pleasant anyway.

"Since being released I have come to realize there really is no way our secrets are going to remain secret. Everyone in this city carries those phones that have really good cameras and video recorders built into them. And some, like you, carry even better cameras everywhere, just to take pictures of things you like. So there really is no way Shin Tokyo can be where the Plan takes place and the whole world not find the truth behind the secrets MBI has been keeping for twenty years." Madoka hugged herself, her body language telling Gregory that she was not only scared of whatever was pursuing her but scared of what she was saying.

He could only wonder how bad this was going to get.

Madoka met Gregory's eyes again and asked, "Will you promise not to tell anyone what I am going to say? It will not truly matter by this time next year but for now it could still be dangerous to me, and to you, if it becomes known that I told you this."

Gregory considered this for a moment. "I'll promise to not go yelling it from the rooftops. But, Mado-chan, it would be dishonest of me to make that promise and not tell you that if, in my best judgment, telling someone what you tell me will save lives or reduce the risk my own family might be under… I would likely tell. That might not be good enough, in which case I understand. But I can't make such an oath blind and you should understand that sharing something important with me means you're going to have to trust my judgment."

She considered what Gregory said then nodded, "That is good enough, Gregory-san. I trust you and you have impressed me as someone who has good judgment. You know more than anyone I've ever known, including the scientists at MBI. And, really, it might not matter. A year from now none of this will likely matter."

"Okay then," Gregory smiled crookedly at the diminutive blonde girl. Gregory reached over and put his hand on her shoulder, squeezing it lightly, reassuringly. He did so reluctantly, as it marked the first time he had ever deliberately touched the young woman, but she so obviously needed reassurance. "Hit me with it and let's see if we can find some solutions to whatever is deviling you, okay?"

Madoka nodded agreement then smiled up at Gregory, the first full smile he'd seen from her since she entered the classroom. Like always, her smile made his heart skip a beat, her beauty shining like a beacon, warming his heart. And, like always, it scared Gregory just a bit because he _knew_ that Madoka wasn't for the likes of him, but he felt pulled towards her in spite of that certain knowledge.

Gregory removed his hand from her shoulder as if he had been touching a hot stove. Fortunately, Madoka did not notice or she pretended not to, as she looked away towards the windows again.

"First, I am being chased by someone, her name is Katsuragi. She works for a man named Higa. I do not know if that is his family name or his given name, but he is who she… works for. She saw me earlier this afternoon. I know of this man she works for, Higa, and I know he is a very bad person, Gregory-san. She saw me but I was lucky and jumped onto a city bus that was passing by at that moment, just getting into the doors before they closed. It was really nothing but sheer luck she did not see me, did not know where I disappeared to. She probably did not understand what a city bus was, either, so that no doubt helped."

Madoka paused and shivered, "It was near here and I did not dare try to walk back to the apartment. She would have caught me, I do not doubt it."

Gregory frowned at that. "Why is this Higa person having his people chase you? How do you know him? Have you had dealings with him?"

"No, and I have never spoken to him or any of his people before last week at all. He is not after me specifically. He is after anyone like me and the girl who I ran into this afternoon, Katsuragi, is someone like me who he caught and now she… works for him and is looking for more of us to bring to him."

Shaking his head and continuing to frown, Gregory replied, "But that doesn't explain why or what's special about you that he'd be chasing 'people like you', Mado. Come on, spit it out, let's get to the bottom of this then once that's out of the way we can get into the details, okay?"

Madoka nodded her head but didn't speak for a moment. She chewed her lower lip nervously, and then looked up at Gregory. "Well, then the real first thing you should know, Gregory-san, is that I am not exactly from around here."

Gregory nodded, "Okay, that's not hard to guess just from your appearance, in spite of your perfect Japanese."

Madoka looked away, a bit of pink coloring her cheeks. "No," she continued, "I mean I am really, really, not from around here. As in, not from this world. Earth. Not… not really."

Gregory stopped nodding.

"Say again?"

o.0.O.0.o

The late afternoon winter sunlight filled the classroom with a warm glow. Madoka pulled on the hem of her long t-shirt nervously, looking down and not meeting Gregory's eyes. She knew she needed to tell Gregory everything but it was difficult. She had not realized how difficult it would be. There had been so much emphasis put on keeping the truth behind the Sekirei secret and keeping the Sekirei Plan secret that it was not easy to just go against that. They had even been told that human's would kill them if they knew the truth or they would lock them up and do experiments on them and never let them go.

Ironic, that last threat, all things considered.

But she also knew she was in over her head and she had only been out for a couple of weeks. She _needed_ someone like Gregory to help her, someone who knew how the real world worked, someone who understood what an 'ATM' was and how you could get cash out of one.

Someone who knew what 'cash' was, for that matter.

She'd never appreciated before how ill prepared for the real world she and her fellow Sekirei were. She wondered how many would end up with horrible men like Higa or his slimy henchman Kakizaki simply because the Sekirei did not know any better, did not know how to navigate the day-to-day challenges of life in Shin Tokyo in 2020 A.D.

"Say again?"

She could hear the mix of confusion and irritation in Gregory's voice. She cringed at the irritation. She did not want to make Gregory mad at her; she _liked_ Gregory, in spite of all the creepy old guy looks she noticed he gave her. He had taken her in and made sure she had food, clothes, and shelter and showed nothing but concern and care for her, for the whole last week. Moreover, he had kept his word to not take advantage. She did not really mind him looking; he'd not done more than look, for which she was very grateful.

If not for Gregory she'd have been in a great deal of trouble, possibly already captured by Higa or some other terrible person who could force her to accept them as her Ashikabi, then she would be doomed for the rest of her entire life. There was no way to break a Sekirei/Ashikabi bond; everyone knew that it was "forever and ever". Those were the words every Sekirei spoke after their bond with their Ashikabi was made and for good reason.

She owed Gregory everything at this point; he had almost literally saved her life! She did not want him angry or disappointed with her!

It wasn't supposed to be like this! Madoka thought she would have more time to look for her destined mate. But with the scare today, with Katsuragi spotting her, Madoka knew she had to find an Ashikabi and fast, even if it wasn't the perfect person or ideal partner she'd hoped to find. Once she was bound to someone, anyone, then she would be safe from monsters like Higa.

She'd had a small bit of 'reaction' to Mishi-chan. Mishi was cute, she was smart, and she was kind. Madoka could do far worse, she realized that now. So now she just needed to get Gregory to take her back to the apartment in his big orange vehicle, keep her away from Katsuragi long enough to get to Mishi and see if she could convince Mishi to be her Ashikabi… or failing convincing her just kissing Mishi as hard as she could and hope it worked out anyway.

Anything would be better than suffering Katsuragi's fate. _Anything_. Especially as Madoka knew she would be of no use to a man like Higa. She was not strong, fast, or capable in a fight. She couldn't help him win the Sekirei Plan so her fate would be that of a worthless tool, discarded and never even considered again.

No, she had to get back to the apartment and find Mishi. She felt that little bit of reaction, she knew Mishi could wing her if she tried.

"Yes, Gregory-san. Just like you heard me say. I am not truly human and not from this world." Madoka realized how crazy that sounded but it was the truth so she had to start there or Gregory wouldn't cooperate. He was too good at getting right to the heart of things for any deception on her part to work on him, she knew that.

When Gregory didn't reply after a minute, Madoka looked up to see if she could judge his reaction to her statement. He was still sit  
ting on the edge of the teacher's desk, one leg up on the desk, the other leg down with his foot on the ground. His face was no longer smiling; in fact he wore an expression of intense focus she'd not seen on him before. It was a little intimidating, frankly.

"Gregory-san?"

Gregory's green eyes met hers again and he grimaced and looked away from her before speaking. Madoka was surprised at how much it hurt that he wouldn't look at her.

"Let's set aside whether or not I believe what you are saying is true. No, Mado-chan," Gregory held up a hand to stop her protests, "I'm not saying you are lying to me. But you might have been told something that isn't accurate or any of a hundred other explanations that are more likely than the chances that you are an intelligent life form from another world that just happens to look entirely human and happens to look exactly like an almost ideally beautiful human at that. Let's not get into the odds of xenobiological parallel evolution and the arguments... No, there is no point in that right here, this minute. Let's assume what you're saying is true enough for our purposes right here and now."

Gregory grimaced then continued, "So, you're an alien and you're being pursued by another alien like you, this girl Katsuragi. She is working for this man, Higa. Is Higa one of your people?"

Madoka breathed a sigh of relief. Even if Gregory was not agreeing with the entirety of what she had told him at least he was willing to act as though it were true and that is really all that mattered, like he said, right here and now.

"No, Higa is a human. And yes, Katsuragi is one of my people." Madoka continued in a small, barely-audible voice, "We are called Sekirei. My 'people' as you put it. We are the Sekirei."

"Like the little bird? The black and white bird, called a 'wagtail'?"

Madoka blinked and looked back up at Gregory. "Yes, just like the little bird. Which is maybe a coincidence, I do not know. We have a lot of bird ancestry, like humans have monkey ancestry."

Gregory shook his head at that, though Madoka wasn't sure if he was disagreeing with her statement that the Sekirei were descended from avians or that humans were descended from monkeys.

But everyone knew humans were descended from monkeys.

"Okay, again, Mado-chan, we'll let that slide for now, since it's not really important for you to understand the difference between 'common ancestor' and 'descended from' at this point. Nor is it important for you to understand that avians are not mammals and you are very… very definitely a mammal." Gregory looked like he was struggling to meet her gaze.

It was a look he regularly got when speaking to her and she still had not figured out what it meant, but he was right, it really did not matter right now about the birds and the monkeys.

Gregory muttered, seemingly to himself, "Whoever named you after a bird that is also called the 'wagtail' had quite the naughty sense of humor though, I'll grant that."

Madoka didn't know exactly what Gregory meant by that but since it didn't seem important right now she let it go. She would try to ask him what he meant, later. If she ever got the chance, of course. The little blonde Sekirei tried to continue the confession of her secrets; she knew they had to get going and as soon as possible.

"Gregory-san, the important thing to understand is that there are only just over 100 of us on this world. A man named Hiroto Minaka discovered us in 1999; he and his minions discovered the ship that we had come in. It had crashed in the ocean a thousand years ago and we were all in suspended animation or… something like that." Madoka stopped her explanation and looked at Gregory; his expression indicated he had a question. Or a thousand questions.

"Do you mind if I get a notebook out and take some notes, Mado-chan? Also, 'minions'? Really?"

Madoka shrugged, causing Gregory to get that funny look on his face again, then replied, "Well, that is what the Professor always said, that he and his minions discovered us."

Elsewhere in Shin Tokyo, Sahashi Takami felt the urge to go beat Hiroto Minaka into a bloody smear.

Gregory searched through his briefcase and pulled out a twin wire bound A4 notebook with a black cover as well as a ballpoint pen. He flipped through the notebook quickly to confirm it was a new, blank, notebook, turned it to the second page and started writing. Without looking up he asked, "You mentioned MBI earlier. I assume Hiroto Minaka is the same as the eccentric genius Hiroto Minaka who owns MBI almost entirely and has been in the news so much lately for making some revolutionary… technological breakthroughs…"

Gregory stopped writing and looked up at Madoka; his face showing a great deal less confidence than it was just a minute ago.

Madoka answered, "Yes. He was known to us as The Professor because he was the person who taught most of us about the Sekirei Plan and he was in charge of everything. I really am not sure why he was called a Professor but no one dared really question him about it. He was not ever mean to us though, other than requiring us to do our exercises and physical exams without clothes on."

Gregory twitched at that but soldiered on bravely. "You were all discovered in 1999 and you've lived isolated, imprisoned, kept away from everyone by MBI all this time? Why are you out now, did you escape? What about this… Katsuragi?"

"No, I did not escape, Gregory-san. It is the Sekirei Plan, which the Professor has made for all of us to participate in. MBI is releasing a few of us into the city every week, starting a couple of weeks ago; I was the fifth Sekirei released into the city, though I do not know the identities of who were released before me. They were to release three to five of us a week for the next several months. They kept us apart from each other a lot; I do not think I personally met more than forty of my fellow Sekirei the entire time I was in the MBI Sekirei Labs. And most of those who I did meet I did not know for long."

Madoka scowled, her eyes seeing images from years ago. "Part of their experiments with us involved us forming then breaking relationships and some groups were kept together and some were broken apart after a time and they kept some pairs together for years then separated them to see what would happen… there was a lot of unhappiness with how MBI kept tearing us apart from each other. There were only five of us in Group 11 who were there from our earliest childhood through this year. And even I was removed from Group 11 eventually; I spent the last maybe three months isolated."

Gregory kept writing in the notebook and growled under his breath, "Inhuman. You don't just experiment on people, even if it's just social experimentation, without their consent. These guys are guilty of violating a huge raft of laws." Gregory paused his writing and looked up at Madoka. "We'll come back to 'Group 11' and who was in it and for how long later. How long were you there?"

She shook her head, "I do not really know for sure, Gregory-san. All of my life, I know that. There was not any real way to tell or record the passage of time. I did not know what a week was or a month was until a long time after we learned to read and write. I told you I spent my last maybe three months isolated because I cannot be sure how long it was. Even after they finally taught us about calendars and years and weeks and months there were not any calendars in the Sekirei Labs. Some counted days, but even that could be messed up easily. So you just guessed or did not worry about it." Madoka laughed at that, a slightly bitter sound, very unlike her usual laugh. "Sometimes it would seem like weeks had passed and other times months, but there were also drugs we were given that would make us sleep for a period of time and we would wake up having had changes made to our bodies and even our minds sometimes."

"Like what kind of changes?"

Madoka sighed and returned to nervously pulling on the hem of her t-shirt. "Like we would wake up older or noticeably taller or with more muscles or sometimes a Sekirei who was having difficulty controlling their abilities would go for a round of 'adjustments' and come back more controlled. That is what it was called, 'adjustments'. My last round of adjustments was a couple of months ago. I did not notice any changes from that cycle of adjustments and after that I was kept away from any of the Sekirei in the labs and just given things to study and exercises to do as well as listening to the most boring recorded lectures about the Sekirei Plan and how wonderful the Professor is."

Madoka rubbed her forehead, obviously not happy about the later part of her life in the MBI Sekirei Labs. "Then they put me in a van and dropped me off in the city with my MBI debit card and a fake identity. My fake identity card said I was named Sanjunana Madoka because we all had numbers, even on our ship they said our tanks were numbered. So I am Sekirei Number 37 Madoka." The way Madoka said this got Gregory's attention.

Gregory was no longer taking notes but instead was listening to Madoka's story and watching her face while she spoke of how MBI treated her and the other Sekirei. He stood, then came around the desk to stand near her, and held out his right hand, "Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Sekirei 37, Madoka."

Gregory smiled as he said this but it still warmed Madoka's heart to be greeted by her name and by someone who knew who she really was finally. She grasped Gregory's hand and replied, "It is a pleasure to meet you as well, O'Donnell Gregory."

They both laughed at this and Gregory reached across the desk to retrieve his notebook then paused before opening it to continue making notes. Madoka waited to hear what Gregory was thinking, she really didn't know where to go from here.

"Mado-chan. As interesting and important as your history in the MBI labs or dorms or whatever it was is and as important as learning who else in addition to Hiroto Minaka was involved in the experiments on you and your fellow Sekirei is… those things probably aren't critical right now, this minute. You said you were being chased by another Sekirei, Katsuragi, who works for a human man, Higa. Why are they chasing you and what can we do to make you safe? Let's focus on that right now, because it is getting late and we need to get moving I think."

Blonde hair bobbing as Madoka nodded her head enthusiastically in agreement, she said, "Yes, yes, absolutely right Gregory-san. First, why Katsuragi and Higa are chasing me then what we might do to stop them. The two things are related, of course."

Madoka started pacing along the wall behind the teacher's desk, hugging her arms around her midsection nervously. "One of the most important things we Sekirei have to do, right away when we are released into the city for the Sekirei Plan, is find our Ashikabi."

"Hold on, Mado-chan. Ashikabi? I don't recognize that word."

"Well, Gregory-san, our Ashikabi are our destined mates, the person who a Sekirei is bound to for ever and ever. It is a bond that can never be broken once established and we are supposed to find our Ashikabi in the city then…" Madoka broke off here, unable to meet Gregory's gaze.

"And then? What, Mado-chan?"

Madoka murmured her answer while fiddling with some papers on the teacher's desk, "Well, the Ashikabi and Sekirei kiss and that is how the bond is made. There is a display of psychic power that looks like wings that comes from the Sekirei's back so it is also called 'winging'. A Sekirei is either 'winged' or 'unwinged'." She looked back up and raised her chin a bit. "I am unwinged, because I have not found my Ashikabi yet. I was hoping to find someone who was suited just right for me but I learned not long after I was released into the city that it is possible for a human who has Ashikabi potential, like this man Higa, to wing more than one Sekirei."

She scowled, angry and offended, "And I learned it is possible for an Ashikabi to force himself on a Sekirei, to force a winging. This bonds her to him forever even though he is not the right person for her! It is a horrible thing, Gregory-san, and no one ever even mentioned it was possible in the MBI lectures. I do not think they know about it. But it is horrible and a fate worse than death, any Sekirei would agree with me describing a forced winging that way."

Gregory looked like he wanted to return to taking notes but resisted the temptation. "Okay. So even worse than rape, since it results in a lifetime of slavery to a man you might hate or who might be totally evil. So of course, if this is possible someone found out right away. You saw Higa do this to someone? Katsuragi?"

Madoka nodded, her eyes gleaming with unshed tears suddenly. "I did, Gregory-san. It was the most horrible, terrifying, thing I have ever seen in my life. He did not even try to kiss her; she was being held captive by another Sekirei who was already bound to him and he… he… he spit in her mouth, Gregory-san! And when that did not work he licked his finger and just… stuck it into her mouth, and he looked like it disgusted him to have to touch her at all!" Madoka wiped at her eyes before continuing, voice choked with emotion, "That did it, her wings burst into light and you could see she was now bound to him forever and ever."

Madoka sniffled, and then looked up at Gregory, anger and fear contorting her angelic features. "It was not supposed to be like this! We Sekirei were supposed to find the person who would love us and then in the Sekirei Plan we are all supposed to fight and contest with each other until there is one winner and they get to ascend. I do not know what that really means, so do not bother asking. Whoever is the last standing is supposed to win the great prize from Hiroto Minaka. Some think the winner will get to live with their Ashikabi forever, which sounded like a wonderful and romantic thing when I thought like all the others that an Ashikabi meant a person we loved and who loved us."

Gregory looked tempted to reach out and squeeze her shoulder again. Madoka pressed on, trying to get to the end of her story. "But now all of it sounds like a horrible thing that is going far worse than I ever imagined before I was released into the city. I really do not know what to do next, Gregory-san. If Katsuragi, or any of Higa's other Sekirei, catch me they will drag me to him and he will forcibly wing me and then my life will be over."

Madoka looked into Gregory's eyes and went on, intently, "I must bond with an Ashikabi now, before the worst can happen. Then I will be proof from any other Ashikabi's efforts because nothing can break the bond between a Sekirei and her Ashikabi, nothing. I do not care anymore if they are the perfect person I wanted or if they are exactly who fate meant for me! I just want to be safe from what happened to poor Katsuragi!"

Gregory listened to her with a growing look of puzzlement on his face. He started to ask a question several times after Madoka was finished speaking but stopped each time and reconsidered. Finally he settled on asking, "Mado-chan, how can you know if someone is possible to be an Ashikabi? Can you feel it? Do they look like something specific?"

Madoka shook her head, valiantly trying to get her emotions back under control. "No, they might look like any person at all. At first I thought any human that I might kiss would wing me but I realized that cannot be right. There are too many situations where I might drink from a glass that you drank from or such and it really just cannot be that easy. So I think it is only certain humans who have the potential to be Ashikabi. That was a popular theory among the other Sekirei, that only special humans could… um… mate… with us."

Gregory smirked a little, "Yes, I would imagine that was a popular theory in a dorm full of beautiful, teenage girls who were all speculating about their destined Prince Charming. No mere normal monkey descendant, but only a special person, indeed."

The Sekirei nodded her head, realizing how juvenile and even insulting that sounded, now. "I did not mean any offense, Gregory-san…"

Gregory waved his hands, smiling and answered, "No, no, it's fine, Mado. I find it kind of funny and very much the sort of thing any teenage girls might say or think. Don't worry." He glanced out at the nighttime view of the Tokyo Metro High courtyard and sighed, "It's already getting late; whatever we need to do we need to do it now. Do you have any candidates for Ashikabi who we can get you to so you can kiss them and then be safe from bastards like this man, Higa?"

"Yes, there is someone who I had a slight reaction with. I think this person could be an Ashikabi, but the only way to know for sure is to try to kiss them and see if the bond happens, if my wings appear."

"Okay, great, then let's go, Mado-chan! Where is this guy?"

Madoka twisted her shirt hem nervously, noting that the fabric was beginning to disintegrate under the abuse, and then let her eyes wander around the room, avoiding Gregory's gaze. She almost whispered, "It is a girl, Gregory-san. It was… um… Mishi-chan. It was Mishi-chan who I could feel a small reaction with."

Gregory, closing his briefcase back up after tossing his black notebook in and getting ready to rush for the door, stopped in his tracks.

"Say again?"

o.0.O.0.o

Lights from the storefronts of Shibuya Ward and from other vehicles glared on the windshield of the Jeep as Gregory and Madoka drove in silence, hoping to get from Tokyo Metro High to the O'Donnell's apartment without running into any trouble, especially any trouble like Katsuragi.

Gregory rested his right forearm atop the steering wheel as he drove, partially on autopilot, mind occupied by thoughts of his blonde passenger, thoughts of his daughter Mishi, thoughts of crazy stories of battle royale in a metropolis of 19 million souls, and alien bird women, and crazed lunatics who run trillion yen multinational companies.

He did not know what he thought of the whole 'Sekirei are aliens' thing. He knew that the odds of coincidental parallel evolution were so long as to be a practical impossibility. The odds of another intelligent species evolving near enough to Sol system to contact it and just happening to exist in the same blink of an eye that the entirety of human history was in the scale of time of the universe… Gregory was a science fiction fan but he was also a rationalist. He knew the odds were so long against such things that no one took them seriously, not if they really understood the factors involved.

Those things did not really matter until Madoka brought his sixteen-year-old daughter into the equation. Then he had to have more proof than just the word of his incredibly pretty, and incredibly frustrating, houseguest. She claimed the Sekirei had powers and abilities that were beyond what any human could claim. Throwing lightning, leaping 10 stories into the air, punching holes through reinforced concrete walls, see around corners, mindspeak others. When he asked her to show him these things, she mumbled that she was one of the only Sekirei who could not do anything like that except some of the far sight tricks.

Of course.

She had asked him if he had a pocketknife. He gave her the small, folding, knife he carried by habit and she used it to cut him across the back of the hand! Not deeply, just a shallow cut across the entire back of his left hand, enough to bleed all over the desk where she had held his hand down with a remarkably strong grip. Not a supernaturally strong grip, just strong for a five-foot-tall barely one-hundred-pound twenty-year old girl.

Before he could yank his hand back and yell about her being a crazy lunatic who cut people with pocketknives, she placed her other hand on the cut and a moment of warmth from her hand later and there was no cut anymore. Not a scab, not a scar, nothing.

Like it had never happened.

He had snatched the pocketknife away from her and sliced his hand himself, much deeper than she had. Grimacing at the sharp pain that was like a fiery brand across the back of his hand, he held it out to her. She did the same thing; put her hand over the injury and a moment of warmth later the cut was gone, completely healed.

Madoka met his gaze, her sky-blue eyes determined and focused, daring him to deny what had just happened.

That was when Gregory O'Donnell realized that he had, indeed, fallen very deeply down the rabbit hole.

There were still a hundred explanations that Occam's Razor insisted were more likely than parallel evolution of two species with no common ancestor and separated by light years of space. Perhaps she was a mutant, or a rare type of psychic, or perhaps the entire thing was staged and some sort of elaborate hoax involving controlled hallucinations.

However, he knew that cut across the back of his hand was real. Both of them. Moreover, he _knew_ that Madoka had healed it by putting her hand on it and willing it to be healed. He _knew_ that had really happened, no matter how much his rational side wanted to insist it could not have.

To his credit, Gregory O'Donnell did not once say, "That's impossible!"

He always _hated_ it when someone said that in the face of evidence to the contrary. It was just bad writing.

So he had to believe that what Madoka had said was true, to some degree. Whether or not the Sekirei were really aliens or if they were people who were kidnapped by MBI and experimented on and given mysterious super-human powers… like in a really clichéd super hero comic… it did not truly matter right now. What mattered right now was that Madoka was some sort of person with more than mundane human abilities; that was established fact. She definitely healed the cut on his hand, twice. He felt the pain of the injury and there was still blood left over afterwards, so he was as sure as he could be that it had actually happened. Madoka had mentioned that some of the Sekirei could "see around corners" and they all had varying degrees of ability to sense each other, some could project their thoughts to another Sekirei and be "heard". She called these abilities "farsense" but Gregory just made a note to follow up on the specifics later. For now, he would operate on the assumption that her story about Katsuragi being after her on behalf of the Ashikabi, Higa, were true, because it was safer to make that assumption right now than to do otherwise.

The story she told him about the Sekirei Plan… it really sounded like a piss poor plot for a piss poor manga. What possible reason would MBI, a hugely successful and wealthy company that had patented several revolutionary medical technologies, invest no-doubt-trillions of yen into some battle to the death… or 'termination' as Madoka insisted, as though there was an important difference between the two states… between the 100+ super-powered aliens they _already_ had complete control over? If they wanted all of the Sekirei dead, they could just kill them.

No, it made no sense at all the way Madoka explained it. Which meant that likely there was a lot more going on than she knew. A lot more going on, that would make this Sekirei Plan make sense, make it obvious where MBI and Hiroto Minaka were benefiting from it.

It seemed as though the Sekirei girls - and he confirmed that almost all of them were girls, only about one in eight of the Sekirei were male - were strongly under the impression they would each find an Ashikabi and they would each eventually find each other in this city of 19 million people and they would fight until one was unconscious or yielded or was 'terminated'. Eventually there would be only one remaining and that one and her Ashikabi would win some great prize.

However, if it were possible for an Ashikabi to 'wing' more than one Sekirei… that would make this a completely new ballgame.

Especially if none of the Sekirei and none of the administrators of the Sekirei Plan had counted on ruthless men forcibly winging _groups_ of Sekirei. Whatever controls MBI had in place that were calculated to be effective against one troublesome Ashikabi and his one troublesome Sekirei would fail completely in the face of one troublesome Ashikabi and his _dozen_ troublesome Sekirei no matter how über badass the one Sekirei acting as MBI's muscle was.

That meant this Sekirei Plan could, _would_ , go balls up very quickly.  And that would result in attempts by MBI to regain control of a situation that was far more difficult than they had anticipated. And _that_  would mean overreaction and half-assed plans implemented by rushed, over-worked and under-qualified security staff.

That meant people were going to be in a great deal of danger. Regardless of Madoka's insistence that no Sekirei would ever attack an Ashikabi, Gregory knew that  _the other Sekirei_ were not necessarily the biggest danger to the participants in the Sekirei Plan.

No. Gregory was very aware at how dangerous his own species was when spooked and put in high-pressure situations against things they did not understand.

Gregory was not worried about the other Sekirei nearly as much as he was worried about MBI. Of course, Gregory reminded himself firmly, he had not seen the other Sekirei in action yet so he might well be underestimating just how much a risk _they_ were.

He did not like trying to guess at risks when his daughter was in the equation. Not one damn bit. But Madoka insisted and begged, with tears in her beautiful blue eyes, begged him to take her to the apartment so she could try to bond with Mishi, to save Madoka from a lifetime of enslavement to a ruthless bastard. Any ruthless bastard. Gregory knew very well that whoever this Higa fellow was he sure as hell was not the only man in Shin Tokyo that would be more than willing to force a lifetime of enslavement onto a girl who looked like Madoka.

No, there was no shortage of ruthless bastards in this city. Shin Tokyo was the world  _capital_ of ruthless bastards.

Gregory carefully steered the big, orange, Jeep through the early evening traffic. It was 6pm, a couple of hours later than his usual drive from the school to the apartment, so traffic was a bit denser than he was used to. Here on the western side of the sprawling metropolis vehicle traffic was not as bad as in the downtown area or as bad as it was in the east of the city. It was still dense enough that Gregory needed to pay attention to where he was driving.

Gregory glanced to the left, at the passenger side door-mirror before changing lanes. He looked past the pensive and silent Number 37, Madoka. It was odd to think of her as literally "sanjunana Madoka" even though that was the name he had been calling her for a week. The legal department at the MBI Sekirei Plan Division had a sense of humor at least. Moreover, whoever came up with the name "sekirei" for the girls… a sekirei was a small black and white bird also called a 'wagtail'. And, man oh man, Madoka sure could wag her tail, he granted that.

Sense of humor meant that maybe they were not as mad scientist insane as the whole thing seemed at first glance. At least it was a positive sign, in Gregory's book.

His thoughts were deliberately avoiding the issue of his daughter getting involved in this mess. He was on the knife's edge in his feelings about the whole thing. He truly wanted to help Madoka. If what she had described about forced winging were true and what that meant to her and her kind, to be enslaved in such a way… anyone with any decency at all would make great effort to help a Sekirei avoid such a fate.

But why did it have to be his sixteen-year-old daughter who had managed to spark some "reaction" in Madoka? Was he willing to let Mishi put herself at risk in this crazy Sekirei Plan that no-doubt had far deeper secrets to it than Gregory had even had a hint of so far? It would be like volunteering to take part in a real-life James Bond movie with shadowy organizations moving pieces on a game board against each other, collateral damage happening with innocent people being hurt, even killed.

There were many reasons to say no. Many very good reasons to say no. But looking at Madoka's face, her eyes swimming in unshed tears, fear radiating from her, listening to her literally beg him to help her… there was no way he could do anything other than what he was doing.

So here he was driving her to the apartment to find Mishi. So that Madoka could kiss his sixteen year-old daughter and establish a psychic bond of love and affection between them which would unlock more powers in Madoka as well as mark Madoka as a full participant in this Sekirei Plan. A valid target for the other Sekirei who were going to be patrolling the city looking for easy 'kills'.

Gregory's fingers itched to find his notebook and make more notes on what he and Madoka had discussed. She was remarkably ignorant about the details of her own people, the Sekirei. How did their powers operate, where did the energy for their powers come from, what range of abilities were there… there were a thousand questions that immediately came to mind for Gregory and he was shocked that Madoka could not answer even the most basic. It seemed as though MBI had kept the Sekirei ignorant by design, focusing most of their efforts on convincing them to participate in the Sekirei Plan (and Gregory found out very quickly that even Madoka had complete conviction that the Sekirei Plan was a good and necessary thing, even as she bemoaned her own zero chance of winning).

Gregory wondered how deep the conditioning went into which MBI had put so much effort. While people, including Sekirei, he assumed, were naturally willing to compete against each other they were also naturally very prone to cooperation. That is the only reason humankind climbed out of the prehistoric darkness to accomplish the civilization which was the crowning achievement of life on Earth.

Convincing someone to kill _all_ of the other people like them in order to win an undefined prize would require quite a _lot_ of conditioning. Alternatively, very careful selection of the participants might work. But if MBI raised all 100+ Sekirei from the womb to adulthood then they could not have screened for the kind of personalities who would gladly sign up for mass slaughter.

There must have been a _lot_ of conditioning.

And he was voluntarily signing his sixteen year old daughter to get involved in it.

On the knife-edge. Help Madoka. Keep Mishi uninvolved and safe. Help Madoka.

 

* * *

* * *

Gregory kept driving, one eye on the dense traffic on the Omotesandō, the wide street that passed through the heart of western Shin Tokyo, and the other eye on the big LED monitor in the center of the dash showing the fastest route back to the apartment. He disagreed with the GPS that taking Omotesandō was a good plan. The street was famous worldwide, called "Tokyo's Champs-Élysées" without exaggeration. He usually drove well around the commercial district that made Shibuya Ward famous, but he had not been paying attention and followed his GPS's recommendations.

"Mado-chan, can you use your, ah, seeing-around-corners thing to find Katsuragi? You can see further than normal and through things, right?"

"Yes, but it is not easy." Madoka answered quietly. "I am trying to sense her but I have never tried doing this while moving and it seems that it is more difficult while we are driving, Gregory-san."

Well, so much for that idea. Gregory grimaced and asked, "Are you sure there has been no one else you had any reaction to at all? Is Mishi the only person in a week who you've met that might be an Ashikabi?"

Gregory heard the sigh from his passenger before she answered, her soft voice practically caressing his ears. "Mishi-chan is the best chance I have. Even with Mishi-chan it was just a small twinge, Gregory-san, a reaction so small I was not sure of what it meant at the time. And from what we were told there would be no mistaking a reaction with a strong Ashikabi. If someone had the potential, was kind, and showed they cared for a Sekirei it could spark a reaction as well, even if there was no reaction at first encounter. I suspect if the Sekirei wanted it badly and the potential Ashikabi wanted it badly even a marginal Ashikabi could manage to make the 'winging' happen."

Out of the corner of his eye Gregory saw Madoka shifting in the Jeep's bucket seat, tucking one leg under the other and turning to face him as she continued. "I am wondering how much of what we knew, how much of the rumors and old myths that were whispered among us in the dorms, how much is true and how much is just the wishful thinking of silly girls who were scared and alone. Understand, Gregory-san, that the subject of Ashikabi and winging was the single most gossiped about item in our lives. MBI certainly put a lot of emphasis on it as well, constantly reminding us that as soon as we were released into the city we had to find our Ashikabi. They went on about that almost as much as they went on about 'fight fight fight until only one remains'. I wonder about how much of all we were told is untrue, but I saw Katsuragi's winging with my own eyes. As horrible as it was I know at least the story about Ashikabi and Sekirei and winging is definitely very true."

Gregory nodded, concentrating on driving and on what Madoka had said. He had a sudden mad notion to reach over and open the passenger side door of his Jeep and push the beautiful blonde girl out into the street right in front of the Meiji Shrine and take off, praying to never hear about her or the Sekirei Plan or aliens ever again. The impulse was so strong and sudden that he could not breathe for a moment.

His left hand, resting on the stick shift to be ready to shift gears in this traffic, felt Madoka's hand cover it and squeeze gently. He glanced to the left towards her, where she was turned in the passenger seat so she was facing him, a full smile on her face, gratitude radiating from her. "Thank you Gregory-kun. For everything that you have done for me and are trying to do for me. If not for you, I would have been condemned to a horrible fate by now. You are the best man I have ever met and I want you to know I am very grateful for your kindness and your protection."

Just like that, the crazy idea of pushing Madoka out of the vehicle into traffic disappeared from his head. He could only smile back at her and answer, "Of course, Mado-chan. Anything I can do to help, I'll do."

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

* * *

From the Notebooks of Gregory O'Donnell

_**Terminology** _

**MBI Sekirei Labs** \- We'll use this phrase as our umbrella term to designate MBI's facilities for the study, housing, and care of the Sekirei. There may be multiple locations but unless it is important to specify which or where we will just call them all the MBI Sekirei Labs. Madoka reports there was no one specific term used for these facilities that she was aware of. Madoka and the other Sekirei she was raised with spent their entire lives in the MBI Sekirei Labs, not once being allowed to go away from the controlled facilities on their own. This blatant imprisonment is only the least of the laws, both Japanese and International, which MBI seems to have violated.

**Sekirei** – The supposedly alien subjects of MBI's experimentation and MBI's 'Sekirei Plan'. At least some are confirmed by my own witnessing to have abilities beyond human. There were 108 of them when their ship crashed into the Pacific a thousand years ago (this all being reported by Madoka as 'common knowledge' among the Sekirei in the MBI Sekirei Labs). The 108 included one adult (Sekirei 01) and 107 Sekirei fetuses at various stages of development, transported in some sort of suspended animation womb tanks.  
They were discovered by Hiroto Minaka and his "minions" (a term used by Minaka himself according to Madoka) in late 1999 still in suspension aboard their long-crashed ship. Madoka does not know where this ship might be other than a vague memory of it being on a rocky island in the ocean. (Later Note: Kamakura Island in international waters near Japan)  
Madoka indicates there was some significant difference between the late-stage fetuses (numbers 02 through 09) and the rest of the Sekirei (numbers 10 through 108). What possible difference one pre-viability fetus can be to another pre-viability fetus is unknown but Madoka insists there was certainly a difference of some sort.

**Ashikabi** – Madoka says the Sekirei require a psychic mating bond to an 'Ashikabi' in order to unlock all of their psychic potential (and possibly to unlock the ability to reproduce, must follow up on this later). She says the Ashikabi are indistinguishable from any other human, indicating that the trait for Ashikabi potential is not common to all humans. Must follow up on where this trait originated from, Madoka reported that myth or legend among the Sekirei hints Ashikabi-ness may be a result of ancient Sekirei genes still being passed down among the human population from earlier Sekirei arrivals on Earth. Can male Sekirei be Ashikabi? Can female Sekirei? Is it only humans who can be? Only humans with some ancient Sekirei genetics? If only Terran Humans with Sekirei ancestry can be Ashikabi then it follows that Sekirei themselves could be Ashikabi, unless the 108 specimens aboard the original ships were engineered to not have that ability themselves while still passing it on to their descendants. Obviously a great deal more research needs to be done on this subject.

**Group 11** – The selection of Sekirei who shared common dormitory, classes, examiners, and 'adjusters' to which Madoka was assigned. Madoka reports that there were five Sekirei who were always a part of Group 11, but others came and went over the years. This manipulation of which Sekirei lived together, for how long, when they were separated from those they had grown bonds with, seems to be part of a long term, intensive, study by MBI on the socialization of the Sekirei, possibly to determine how best to manipulate them long term.  
From initial descriptions, it seems that interaction with other Groups never occurred and even the existence of other Groups is speculative. If someone were removed from Group 11, it meant they would never be seen again, in Madoka's experience.  
Note: get Madoka to list all the members of Group 11 in every detail she can recall, as well as those who were assigned to the Group and separated from it over the years.

* * *

_**Sekirei** _

What Sekirei I have information about I will note here, along with the source of that information, rumor or hearsay noted where applicable.

 

37 Sanjunana Madoka – Madoka has the ability to heal injuries by touching the wound and concentrating on a desire for the wound to be healed. I witnessed a  
 demonstration of this ability with my own eyes and the demonstration was carried out upon my own body, both injury caused by Madoka herself for purposes of proving her abilities and a second injury caused by myself to prove there was no trick with the injury itself.  
  
She asserts that she can see also "around corners", which sounds a lot like a form of clairvoyance. The same faculty allows some to communicate wordlessly, mind-to-mind, as well as sense other Sekirei and their relative strength.  
She claims most of the other Sekirei are super-humanly strong and tough and that she is one of the few that lack those abilities.  
She was the fifth Sekirei released into Shin Tokyo as part of Phase One of the Sekirei Plan, on Friday, Dec 6, 2019.

 

 

* * *

**16 Toyotama** – Madoka described Toyotama as a powerful fighter, a "power type" who had great skill with a fighting staff/javelin that she carries on clips on her back when it is not needed. Madoka says she does not know if the lower number Sekirei are automatically more powerful than higher number Sekirei (other than the single digits who are definitely more powerful, must look into this later). The impression amongst the members of Group 11 was that the 'teen' numbered Sekirei were certainly a cut above everyone except for the single digits. Madoka indicated she knew Toyotama for years in Group 11 but we did not get into their history (must return to this when more time is available). Toyotama is bound to the Ashikabi Higa Izumi.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

**18 Ichiya** – Another power type, according to Madoka, who was raised in Group 11. Ichiya eventually specialized in savate, or French kickboxing, as her combat style of choice. Madoka claims only 16 Toyotama and 14 Chiyo ever defeated Ichiya in spars among the Group 11 Sekirei.

She is brutally strong, especially her legs.  She can kick a hole through reinforced concrete without any great effort and without any damage to herself, indicating that not only is she extremely strong but her durability is very highly rated as well.

Ichiya follows 16 Toyotama in most things, according to Madoka.  Ichiya seems to be someone who prefers to not make the decisions but instead prefers to back up the person she's chosen to make the decisions, instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

**22 Kochou** – Bound to Ashikabi Kakizaki some date prior to Monday Dec. 9 2019. Kochou is supposedly one of the uncommon Sekirei with non-physical powers, like Madoka herself. Kouchou's abilities appear to have something to do with her intelligence and the ability to organize data, but Madoka knew little for sure about it, only rumor and what she overheard among the MBI staff and, most importantly, what she heard from Ashikabi Higa and Ashikabi Kakizaki on 9 Dec 2019.

Madoka believes, from what she overheard between Ashikabi Higa and Ashikabi Kakizaki, that Kochou is somehow able to get inside information about the release schedule of the Sekirei, allowing Ashikabi Higa and his people to set ambushes for the unprepared and unaware Sekirei. If true this makes Kochou a _significant_ asset to Higa's operation and a real game changer, one which MBI very well may not have taken into account in their planning, especially in planning their control elements, those aspects of their operation meant to enforce compliance with the Sekirei Plan itself.

Madoka has little firsthand knowledge of Kochou, though she was one of the Sekirei witnesses to an emergency which occurred within the last year of their confinement at the MBI Sekirei Labs that involved Kochou and her twin sister Akitsu. Her description of the event is added below.

Madoka: _The staff was separating the two to be assigned different dorm groups for the first time in their lives. This was well after we had all been through our Puberty Adjustments, I will guess it was perhaps just a year ago. Akitsu, who was back then known as number 07, went crazy and lost control of her powers (_ Gregory notes: something to do with being able to reduce thermal energy in an area, coupled with the ability to force condensation of atmospheric water. So in other words she can make ice out of thin air, unbelievably _), resulting in the death of staff as well as destruction of property. All the Sekirei witnesses were quickly moved away from the scene. I do not know what happened after, other than the long term consequences of this event directly led to Akitsu to becoming a "scrapped number" (_ Gregory notes: must follow up on what this "scrapped number" bit means, later _)._

* * *

 

**  
86 Katsuragi** – Madoka could only say that Katsuragi was likely a "power type" from what she recalled from the few months that Katsuragi shared the same dorm space as Madoka's 'Group 11' several years ago. Madoka's description of the events of Katsuragi's winging to Ashikabi Higa indicated that number 16 Toyotama had little difficulty physically beating Katsuragi. Madoka stressed this meant little when it came to Katsuragi's danger to other Sekirei or to mere humans. Madoka remembers Katsuragi as being mild mannered and quiet, a girl who kept to herself mostly, but who was kindhearted and friendly. Unfortunately Madoka also remembers 16 Toyotama as being brave and kind and a protector of the weak, so what value her recollection of what Katsuragi's nature might be is questionable.

 

 

 

* * *

 

**_Ashikabi_ **

**Higa** – Higa Izumi, young heir to the Higa Pharmaceutical empire. Izumi has access to a great deal of financial resources as the CEO and President of Higa Pharmaceuticals, also, perhaps only coincidentally, a primary rival of MBI in the medical technology field.  
Madoka reports she could sense he was a powerful and dangerous man, though the worth of this 'sense' has yet to be determined. He bound Sekirei 16 Toyotama to him on some date prior to Monday Dec. 9 2019. He bound Sekirei 86 Katsuragi to him on that date, sometime in the afternoon, downtown Shin Toyko. He may be the first Ashikabi to discover both a) it is possible to 'wing' more than one Sekirei _and_ b) it is possible to do so by force, against the will of the unwinged Sekirei. He seems to have some superior relationship to the Ashikabi Kakizaki. He also seems to have some personal dislike or contempt for the Sekirei themselves. Typical elite social class Japanese racism or something else?

* * *

 

**Kakizaki** – Not sure if first or last name. Seems to have an inferior relationship to Ashikabi Higa due to obsequious behavior witnessed by Madoka Monday Dec 9 2019, downtown Shin Toyko. From his own statements and the statements of Ashikabi Higa, Kakizaki has bound Sekirei 22 Kochou at some date prior to Monday Dec 9 2019.

* * *

 

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

* * *

Started Sep 27 2014  
Completed Sep 28 2014  
Originally Posted May 7 2015


	4. NGFOM 1.4 - A Fate Denied

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Non-con references in this chapter. 
> 
> Also, please do remember that in Japan one drives on the left-hand side of the road, much like in the U.K., so everything involving vehicles and roads is the opposite from in the U.S. That means you look to the left from the drivers seat to look at the person in the passenger seat.

  **No Game For Old Men**

NGFOM 1.4 – A Fate Denied

* * *

 

Thursday, December 19th, 2019

Sekirei number 86, Katsuragi, was never as enthusiastic about the Sekirei Plan as her sister Sekirei seemed to be. In truth, Katsuragi was not enthusiastic about much of _anything_ ; she liked her days to be quiet and peaceful, maybe reading a book or watching a Bruce Lee movie, alone.

However, that was before she was released into Shin Tokyo as one of the first Sekirei sent out to find their Ashikabi in Stage One of the Sekirei Plan.

She had the administrators make her a tight fitting yellow-and-black jumpsuit to wear, like her idol wore in the movie "Game of Death". Katsuragi was a full contact fist fighter, a 'power type' as they called themselves, and she loved watching Bruce Lee movies.

"Game of Death" was her favorite.

Since her winging to her Ashikabi, Higa Izumi, Katsuragi could not work up much enthusiasm about anything. Every day since her winging had been the same; take orders from number 16 or from Higa's assistant, Kakizaki, about where to search for unwinged Sekirei to capture them for her Ashikabi. Return late at night having failed to find any Sekirei, endure the humiliating punishments handed out by Kakizaki for failure, with number 16 disinterestedly watching.

Toyotama was there to make sure Katsuragi took her punishments without fighting back or resisting. She was not even allowed to cover her nakedness. Number 16 told Katsuragi, in a rare moment of collegial talk between the two, that she was grateful to Katsuragi because Kakizaki found Toyotama's larger, muscular, body "unsightly" and that Katsuragi provided the sadistic secretary a preferable target for his… enthusiasms.

This gratitude did not provide any relief from the situation nor did it make Katsuragi feel particularly better, in spite of Toyotama's intentions. Almost every night number 86 was to stand, naked and spread-eagle, against one of the walls in one of the special, private, secure, and (most importantly) sound-proofed, rooms in the residential penthouse level of the Higa Pharmaceuticals headquarters building. Ordered to take whatever Kakizaki's perverse and sadistic mind determined was suitable punishment for her failures.

Katsuragi shuddered to think of what life was like for the one Sekirei that Kakizaki had winged, himself. Silver-haired, pretty, and enviously buxom, number 22 Kochou was one of the rare "brain types" and she was the reason Kakizaki was able to occasionally acquire inside information on where new Sekirei would be released. Information Higa intended to use to swell the ranks of his Sekirei slaves.

Kochou rarely said anything to anyone.

Kochou never met anyone's eyes.

Number 86 Katsuragi was under orders to spend her days hunting through Shin Tokyo to find unwinged Sekirei and then beat them down so she could return them, bound and helpless, to the east of the city, for her Master to wing.

That was the entirety of Katsuragi's world now. Her orders.

Today was different though. Today she had _finally_ caught sight of an unwinged Sekirei! She had seen a blonde Sekirei who she thought might have been number 62, Kaie, or maybe number 39, Mitsuki, both of whom Katsuragi had known from time shared in Group 4 in the MBI Sekirei Labs dorms after her own Puberty Adjustments. The unwinged Sekirei had been wearing casual western-style clothes instead of the more elaborate outfits favored by most of the Sekirei so it was difficult to be sure who she was and she had disappeared into the traffic that swarmed the streets of the city after just a second of eye contact. Number 86 was sure though that she was close to an unwinged Sekirei, close to being able to fulfill her orders. And Katsuragi _really_ wanted to fulfill her orders.

If the Sekirei she was able to retrieve for her Ashikabi happened to be blonde and more petite than Katsuragi and therefore more attractive to Kakizaki's attentions then so much the better.

However, her target had disappeared. Now Katsuragi was searching the sidewalks, the alleys, and the rooftops, with only occasional glances spared for the vehicles that drove by her. No matter how much she strained her eyes and her meager Farsight faculty she still had not found her target. It had been more than two hours since she had met that Sekirei's eyes across the busy street but Katsuragi could feel that she was close. She wished she were better at seeing around corners, like some of the other girls in the MBI Sekirei Labs. Farsight was never one of her strong suits, mainly because it was almost entirely ignored by the researchers in the MBI Labs in favor of the more obviously combat-oriented abilities. Combat abilities that Katsuragi was able to demonstrate skill with, so that is what Katsuragi focused on as she grew up.

Still, she never considered giving up the hunt. No, she would continue searching until she found the unwinged Sekirei or until midnight came, when she was supposed to return to Headquarters, in the east of Shin Tokyo.

Return to Headquarters, another failure. To stand, naked and unbound, ordered by Higa-sama to allow Kakizaki do whatever he wanted to her. Number 86 found that the worst part; if they would tie her up when they beat her, or when they violated her body in shameful ways, then she might find _some_ solace in the fact that she was _forced_ , tied up, had no way to resist. Instead, no such fig leaf for her pride was allowed; she was ordered to stand against the wall, hands above her head gripping two rings that were inset in the masonry and do nothing but accept what Kakizaki did. So that is what she did, unobjecting.

There had been two nights where instead of ordering her against the wall, Kakizaki made her kneel before him. Those had been the worst.

So far.

Number 86 _very much_ wanted to find an unwinged Sekirei to deliver to her Master.

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

" _Hi, I'm Yosuga and this is my best friend, Madoka. What's your name?" the black haired girl with the almond-shaped dark eyes smiled at the new arrival in the Group 11's dorms. Her shy blonde friend Madoka stood behind her, curious about the new girl too but not brave enough to introduce herself._

_That was one of the reasons Madoka loved her best friend Yosuga; because Yosuga was brave so Madoka did not have to be._

_The newcomer to Group 11, a skinny, pale, girl with light blue eyes and dirty blonde hair, answered in a soft mumble, "I am Katsuragi, number 86."_

" _Oh! Yeah, I'm number 44 and Madoka is number 37. I keep forgetting to say that part, I'm sorry!"_

_All three girls looked to be about eight years old though none of them could have said if they were six or eight or ten. They had not been taught about calendars and seasons and years yet because knowing such things was not necessary for the Sekirei aliens, in the view of the MBI Administrators._

_Katsuragi nodded her understanding to Yosuga, "I used to forget too, but in my last Group we started getting in bad trouble if we forgot so I started remembering."_

_Madoka and Yosuga both made sympathetic noises. They knew about getting in trouble with the MBI Administrators. Those people had no sense of humor at all and they were all getting harder and harder to please, too!_

" _Well come on 86 Katsuragi! Me and Mado-chan will introduce you to the others! Hey, do you like movies? You want to pick out the movie for tonight, since it's your first night with us?"_

_Katsuragi nodded her head and excitedly answered, speaking louder than a mumble for the first time since she arrived, "Can we watch a Bruce Lee movie? Those are my favorites!"_

_As Yosuga dragged Katsuragi and Madoka both along into the common room, she answered, "I guess so. I don't think I've seen a Bruce Lee movie. Is it good?"_

" _Bruce Lee is the best fighter ever. You'll love it, I promise."_

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Madoka, Sekirei number 37, sat in the passenger seat of the big, orange, Jeep. On her way, she hoped, to the apartment she had been staying at for the last week, given shelter and food by Gregory O'Donnell and his family.

She also hoped that Mishi O'Donnell, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the man driving the Jeep, would be home. Madoka rather desperately needed to find the American girl and kiss her.

Mishi's father, Gregory, was unsure if he wanted to let Madoka bond with his daughter and involve her in the dangerous Sekirei Plan that MBI was inflicting on not only the Sekirei and their Ashikabi but also everyone in Shin Tokyo. Madoka knew Gregory was undecided; she understood he wanted to help Madoka but his protective instincts towards his daughter had the potential to _destroy_ Madoka's life.

She could not let that happen. If Gregory stopped the vehicle and told her to get out, now, then number 86, who was hunting for Madoka, would find her and drag her back to her master Higa. _Anything_ was better than that happening.

Being bonded to a man like Higa was the worst possible fate Madoka could imagine.

Madoka reached her right hand out and gripped Gregory O'Donnell's hand where it rested on the stick shift. Gregory glanced over at her, surprised. Surprised, since in a week of living with him and his family Madoka had not once initiated a touch with the man.

She held his hand now and smiled her very best smile, putting as much gratitude and affection as she could into her words. "Thank you Gregory-kun. For everything that you have done for me and are trying to do for me. If not for you, I would have been condemned to a horrible fate by now. You are the best man I have ever met and I want you to know I am very grateful for your kindness and your protection."

Madoka could see the commitment to helping her solidify in Gregory's expression, the concern he had for his daughter's safety taking a temporary back seat to his desire to be the kind of man Madoka felt gratitude towards. Madoka envied Mishi; her American friend had a father who cared about her and wanted to protect her so much that it took every trick Madoka knew to keep him on the path of helping Madoka remain free from the nightmare that Higa represented.

"Of course, Mado-chan. Anything I can do to help, I'll do." Gregory's return smile made her feel safer. Gregory would help her, he was a good man and he cared about what happened to her and cared about the other Sekirei too. She could count on him. His honest desire to help her, proven without room for doubt, declared by his words that were spoken in his comforting deep voice, caused warmth to fill Madoka's heart and spread out through her body, a glow she could almost see wrapped about her hand where it clasped Gregory's.

The Jeep was idling at a red light, surrounded by other vehicles. The height of the big American vehicle insured Madoka could see over the rooftops of the cars around them, allowing Madoka to scan the crowds on the sidewalks on either side of the busy street when she wasn't focusing on using her Farsight to sense further than her eyes could manage.

"If you see her, let me know, Mado-chan. We'll try to outrun her, lose her in the traffic and the backstreets. I know this part of the city pretty well and I doubt she does."

Madoka nodded. "I will. If I see her, I will let you know right away." Madoka had not used her Farsight much since that downtown alley where Katsuragi had been winged by Higa, but she tried to engage that sense now, hoping she could use it to see in every direction at once or pick out one person from the crowds along this busy street.

She kept scanning the crowds on the sidewalks on the passenger side of the street but there must have been thousands of people walking along the side of the street! Why weren't these people at home having dinner with their families? She could see them with her eyes and with her Farsight, thousands of people along the street, going into and coming out of stores with names like Gucci and Prada and Dior. It was driving Madoka to distraction, trying to spot one dishwater blonde girl in a crowd of hundreds and hundreds of Japanese.

Still, even though she saw no sign of Katsuragi with any of her senses, Madoka knew the girl was close. She could feel it.

The light ahead turned green and the Jeep moved forward, Gregory shifting the gears into second, which meant Madoka needed to let go of his hand. She did so and turned to her left to look more fully out the passenger side window, rather sharply missing the comfort of the physical contact. She was scared, though she was doing her best to keep it hidden.

As the Jeep picked up speed alongside the other vehicles traveling on this broad, six-lane, avenue through the commercial district around Tokyo Metro High, Gregory caught Madoka's attention. "I'm going to assume that Katsuragi is a blonde girl who is thin and rangy, dressed in a skin tight yellow and black body-stocking like Uma Thurman in 'Kill Bill'."

Madoka's head whipped around to face Gregory, "Yes! Why, do you see her? Where?"

Gregory pointed with the index finger of the hand gripping the top of the steering wheel, pointing directly ahead of the Jeep. "I figure that's her right there, Mado-chan."

Sure enough, standing in middle of the broad street, on the dashed lines that marked the separation between the eastbound traffic and the westbound traffic, was number 86, Katsuragi. She was watching the sidewalks on both sides of the street, her head pivoting back and forth, trying to see everyone and everything at once.

Gregory and Madoka were driving in the furthest right hand lane of the three lanes going in their direction, which meant that barely two seconds after Gregory pointed at Katsuragi, the big orange Jeep drove past her. They passed almost close enough for Gregory to reach out of the driver side window and touch the yellow-and-black clad Sekirei.

Katsuragi met Madoka's eyes as the Jeep drove past, with Madoka unable to do anything but stare in horrified, open-mouthed, astonishment. _She found me… she found me… oh no!_

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

"OH NO! She saw me, Gregory-kun, she sees us! Go! Go faster!" Madoka was yelling in Gregory's ear, the girl turned in her seat completely to stare out the back windows of the Jeep. "Go! She is running after us! She is catching up!"

"What? There's no damn way she's catching up; we're going 60 kph, Madoka."

Madoka was slapping Gregory's shoulder now and screaming, "I am telling you Gregory, she is catching us! Go faster!"

Gregory glanced into the driver's side mirror and sure enough, beyond all realistic expectations, he could clearly see the yellow and black clad Katsuragi running in the middle of the avenue behind them and sure as hell, it looked like she was catching up.

Frustrated yelling in English filled the cab of the Jeep. "You've got to be fucking kidding me. Okay, hold on, damnit, Madoka, sit down and buckle your seat belt!" Without waiting for Madoka to do as he ordered, Gregory whipped the Jeep to the right, turning onto a north-south avenue across three lanes of oncoming traffic. Oncoming traffic which screeched to a halt with horns honking and tires screeching. On the new street, Gregory floored the gas pedal after downshifting fiercely.

"Madoka, sit and buckle your seat belt!" Gregory yelled, still in English.

"I do not know how to buckle a belt thing!" Madoka screamed back at him in the same language.

Gregory could see out of the corner of his eye that Madoka was indeed fumbling with the seat belt as though she could not remember how to use it. "For fuck's sake…" he muttered, watching the traffic ahead to make sure he was clear for the next few moments, and then he reached over with his left hand, grabbed the seat belt buckle, and slammed it home into the receptacle, latching it firmly. Unfortunately, the buckle and receptacle pinched the webbing between his thumb and forefinger badly and his hand started bleeding all over the steering wheel.

"Ah, damnit! Fuck that hurts! Fuck. FUCK!"

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Madoka was shocked into silence by Gregory's loud cursing. She had never heard anyone curse like that in her whole life and certainly never expected it from the kind, articulate, Gregory O'Donnell. He was a schoolteacher! He taught English! He could not talk like that! It wasn't, wasn't, it just wasn't appropriate!

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Gregory, unaware of how profoundly shocked his passenger was, tried to ignore the pain in his hand and focus on driving as fast as he could get away with. In truth, he felt quite a bit better, his head clearer and his heart rate calmer, after the uncharacteristic outburst in English. He thought he saw a yellow blur of something in the rear view mirror, but he did not dare pull his attention from the traffic ahead of him to see for sure.

"Madoka. Madoka! Do you see her behind us?" Gregory asked, his voice still loud in the confines of the Jeep.

The question snapped Madoka out of her momentary shock and she swiveled her head around to look behind the Jeep. "No, I do not see her. No, wait, yes, she is back there, I just saw her jump! She can probably jump five to ten stories up, Gregory-san, so she is going up on top of the buildings to follow us from there! And stop yelling at me in English! I do not like it!"

Gregory grumbled as he drove through and around the evening commuter traffic in such a way that he was bound to receive a dozen tickets from automatic red light and speed limit monitors, "Great, just great, she can jump ten stories up? Wonderful! It's a good thing we're in a vehicle with a giant canvas top, huh? That way she can spot us from halfway across the city if she's on top a building."

The pair spent the next few minutes in silence. Madoka was sitting in the passenger seat with her eyes tightly closed, a look of intense concentration on her face, and Gregory was watching traffic, as they put as much distance between themselves and where they had last seen Katsuragi as possible. Then Madoka yelled, "She jumped to that right hand street by accident, go left! Go, go!"

Gregory turned left without any signal and barely missed plowing the Jeep into a family of four who were crossing the intersection on foot, blithely obeying the Walk sign. The father of the family saved his youngest child's life by pulling her back by her hand so hard that the child completely left her feet.

Gregory immediately turned into a side street to the right, and then a half-block further turned into the small parking lot for a grocery store. He killed the engine and the headlights of the Jeep, remembering at the last moment to get his foot off the brake too. He sat with one hand on the steering wheel, the other gripping the gearshift knob, his eyes wide; the image of that small girl being yanked out of the way of the Jeep's big tires with only inches to spare was imprinted on his mind forever.

The silence in the Jeep was deafening. After a moment Madoka whispered, "Did we lose her?"

Gregory shrugged, looking out the windows and through the mirrors, answering in quiet Japanese, "I don't know, Mado-chan, but after I turned it was too late to do anything but stop. See? The street we were on is closed and there is no way out of this strip of street without turning completely around. Our best hope is that she just goes past us without realizing we stopped."

Madoka nodded agreement, keeping quiet. Her heart was beating so hard it felt it would burst out of her chest, her right hand was gripping Gregory's left hand so hard that the knuckles were white, the blood from his pinched-through-skin slicking her own hand but she did not pay it any attention. "Gregory-san, please, do not let her get me. Please. Promise me, you will not let her get me."

"I won't let her get you, Mado-chan. I promise. But we can't drive like that; I almost killed that little girl."

Madoka nodded, though she had not seen what Gregory was talking about. She eventually spoke, in almost a whisper, still gripping Gregory's bloody left hand, not looking at him but instead watching out the window of the Jeep for any sign of Katsuragi. "There was one other person I reacted to, a little bit, Gregory-san. After a week of being cared for and provided for, shelter and food and clothes and concern, I could feel the same reaction with you that I felt with Mishi-chan."

Gregory turned in the driver's seat to stare at the back of Madoka's head as she remained looking away from him. He could only gape, blinking in confusion while mentally reviewing what Madoka had just said.

"Say again?"

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

" _Mado-chan, is Yosuga here?" Katsuragi quietly asked, the young girl hovering at the door of the room Madoka and Yosuga shared in the Group 11 dormitories._

_Madoka, small and scared, sitting on her bed with her knees pulled up against her chest and her arms wrapped around them tightly, shook her head negatively._

_Katsuragi shuffled her feet for a moment, unsure what to say. She liked Yosu and Mado but talking to Mado was always difficult. Yosuga was the social one among the smaller Group 11 girls, she could tell everyone what everyone else wanted to say without getting nervous at all. In the three months that Katsuragi had been with Group 11 she had grown to like Yosuga and Madoka best of all of the other girls. They were both Katsuragi's size, unlike some of the other girls who were tall and had been adjusted older already. And like the other small girls, Katsuragi lived in fear of being taken away and coming back changed. Or never coming back at all, which sometimes happened to the Sekirei._

_The last one in Group 11 who was taken away and never returned was little 52 Akio. Katsuragi was sad when 52 Akio never returned from his adjustments; he was the only boy Sekirei she had ever known, other than that scary 05 Mutsu but he did not count because he was not a boy, he was a huge and scary grown-up. 52 Akio was the only boy Sekirei any of the girls in Group 11 had ever known and he was quiet and very kind to all of the girls in Group 11, even a shy newcomer like Katsuragi. The taller grown-up girls had hoped he would come back from his adjustments more grown-up too but instead 52 Akio joined list of the Sekirei who had gone away and never came back._

_Katsuragi moved over to stand next to the tiny blonde girl who was her friend. "Did they take Yosu away, Mado-chan?"_

_Madoka nodded her head._

_Katsuragi saw the girl's tears and understood. Madoka and Yosuga had been together always so of course Madoka was scared her friend would never come back. "Mado I'm sure she'll come back, they took 16 Toyotama and 18 Ichiya last week for adjustments and they came back. Even though I barely recognized them, they were so big afterwards! Bigger than 14 Chiyo and her friends even!"_

_She could see this was not really helping Madoka so she tried again. "Hey, Mado-chan, tell me about what your Ashikabi will be like and I'll tell you about mine, okay?"_

_This was Katsuragi's last gambit; the Ashikabi game always pulled Madoka out of her moods. If it did not work then nothing would._

_Katsuragi sat down next to Madoka on the narrow bed when she heard the other blonde girl answer softly "Okay."_

" _Great! Okay, I'll go first, Mado-chan. My Ashikabi will be really rich, and he'll be really really handsome, a real bishounen! He'll have pretty hair like mine and have servants that call him sama…"_

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Gregory noticed he could see the reflection of Madoka's face in the passenger side window well enough to see that there were tears spilling down her cheeks and that her left hand was covering her mouth. She replied after just a moment, her voice remarkably composed for someone who was literally weeping.

"Just what you heard me say, Gregory-san. You could be my Ashikabi. I could feel some small reaction to you, tonight. It is not surprising, is it? Mishi got the potential from someone, it must have been from you, right? And even before tonight, you have been taking care of me. And tonight you have gone above and beyond the call of duty, beyond decent honorable help for a stranger in need."

Gregory protested, "But Mado-chan, I am about as far from the kind of person you deserve for your, ah, Ashikabi as you can get! And I'm married! And even if I weren't married you can't tie yourself for life to a guy so much older than you; you deserve someone better than me! And, and… I just can't be kissing pretty girls, alien or not!"

At the mention of kissing, Gregory saw Madoka's shoulders hunch up defensively. Gregory looked away, understanding. No 18-year-old girl wants to kiss a 40-year-old guy. He told himself this regularly, fooling himself on that subject was a well-known, familiar, trap, which Gregory was really quite adept at avoiding. He could see Madoka was still crying, silently, hand covering her mouth, her blue eyes gleaming in the reflection from all the tears.

"I… I really _do_ understand, Mado-chan. I wouldn't want to kiss an old, creepy, gross, guy either."

Madoka's eyes shifted to meet his in the reflection, growing wide. She started to speak but Gregory cut her off brusquely but trying, desperately, to insert some understanding kindness into his voice, with mixed results. "No, Mado-chan, don't. Don't. It is okay, it really is. And, you know, maybe we lost her! So you can try kissing Mishi and…"

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Madoka stared at the passenger side window, not really seeing _through_ it because she was looking at the reflection in it, the reflection of the face of the man seated in the driver seat of the Jeep. She could make out his features easily: the thinning blond hair, the creases around his mouth that went up around either side of his nostrils, the crow's feet at the corner of his eyes. She could just make out the sagging skin under his jawline and the grey hairs mixed with the darker blond hairs at above his somewhat large ears. Even through her tears she could somehow see Gregory O'Donnell's face clearly. Madoka's shoulders shook with a sob, which she tried to choke off.

Then Madoka "saw", with her Farsight, number 86 walking across the side street and into the parking lot of the small grocery, behind the Jeep. She knew there was no way, now, that Katsuragi would fail to find her.

"No! Oh god oh god oh god…"

Madoka turned and wrestled the seat belt out of its latch, alarming Gregory. She turned in her seat and threw herself at the shocked and all-but-paralyzed Gregory O'Donnell, pressing her tear-slicked lips against his desperately.

…

…

…

After a moment, she pulled back and looked into Gregory's green eyes, which were still wide with shock.

"Oh no! It did not work! No!" she wailed in anguish.

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Gregory looked at the weeping girl in his lap, irrelevantly noticing that he was right when he guessed that she was indeed one of the extremely rare women who could weep and still look amazingly beautiful.

" _Figures. Seriously, Exhibit One in the case for Madoka's alien-ness: unlikely perfection."_

Then he saw, over Madoka's shoulder and through the passenger side window, Katsuragi turn and look towards the Jeep. Gregory understood now what had caused the Sekirei to kiss him out of the blue. Now, no doubt, Katsuragi had heard Madoka's wailing and would be upon them quickly.

Refocusing on the panicking girl in his lap, Gregory gripped both of her upper arms in his hands, shook her sharply, and spoke gently, letting his voice rumble a bit in his chest as he spoke, "Madoka-chan."

She met his eyes and stuttered out, "Y-y-yes, Gregory-san?"

Gregory ignored the sight over Madoka's shoulder of Katsuragi walking across the parking lot towards them, her head turning left and right, searching. Instead, he focused his entire being on Madoka's face. Not that this was a difficult chore; it _was_ an amazing face. "Madoka-chan. You said this was a psychic bond; I think it's going to take more than just pushing your lips against mine. So take a deep breath, close your eyes, and focus on _wanting_ it to happen, focus on, on, reaching out to me, with all of your attention and focus, okay?"

His confident, rumbling, baritone was getting through to the girl at least. He was glad of that, it usually worked to calm his daughter when she went into a panic over something. _No, no, don't think about daughters, think about pretty blonde girls in your lap, idiot!_

Madoka's breathing steadied, she nodded hesitantly, her eyes slowly closed, and her lips even parted a bit in anticipation. But it was pretty obvious that whatever needed to happen next was going to be up to Gregory.

Gregory hoped the rambling speculations from Madoka earlier on the subject of Ashikabi and Sekirei winging were on the right track; that part of the equation was desire. Not just desire to have a Sekirei or have an Ashikabi in general, but desire for _that_ person.

And not just desire to have that person as their platonic lifetime long friend. But a need and a lust and hunger to _have_ every part of the other person, a desire to have them possess you and for you to possess them, all of that could be a factor in whether or not the bond was made.

How willing a participant was to "leave it all on the field", showing the other person how much they wanted, desired, needed, lusted for, the other. How willing were they to open themselves up to the possibility of rejection?

Gregory knew that sort of thing was not likely if Madoka were kissing his sixteen-year-old daughter. _He_ couldn't kiss like that when _he_ was sixteen, or when he was twenty. He would have been too scared of revealing too much about himself, of rejection, too reserved, trying to be too cool.

But there was a lifetime of difference between who he was right here, right now, and who some hypothetical twenty-year-old maybe-Ashikabi was.

And he knew that there was probably less than no chance at all that Madoka wanted him in any way that was going to help make this happen, not really, other than in the sense that anything at all was better than being taken by Higa's Sekirei. So, it was up to Gregory to be the person who laid open his heart, up to Gregory to make this happen if it could happen at all.

Really, it would even be easy; to put everything he had into having a first-kiss with a beautiful girl? A first-kiss with someone, a thing which had its own magic, which Gregory had been fortunate enough to know many times when he was younger and dating in High School and College, but was nothing he expected to ever have happen to him again.

Gregory was almost certain that if an Ashikabi was a Sekirei's mate for life that there was more to the psychic bonding ritual than just swapping _spit_.

_Spit_ is not magical. _Spit_ does not have anything to do with who you are or what you want. Even with what Madoka had witnessed with Higa and Katsuragi, their Sekirei\Ashikabi connection, their bond, there had to have more at play than just _spit_. No doubt, whatever that connection was between Higa and Katsuragi was far under the surface, hard to see or understand, but there _had_ to be something there, more going on than _spit_.

All of this went through Gregory's head in a flash while he paid close attention to just exactly how good Madoka's curvy, compact, body felt pressed against his chest, in his lap, in spite of the awkwardness of the seats of the Jeep. And she _did_ feel _so_ very good against him.

Gregory thought to himself _, "One chance, Mado. We only have one chance to make this work. Come on, we can do this."_

Gregory released her arms and placed both of his hands on either side of her face, paused for only a split second to look at her full, pink, lips, then kissed the beautiful girl in his lap for all he was worth.

…

…

…

… _there!_

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Katsuragi saw the blast of sunshine-yellow psychic power shaped like wings that filled the interior of the orange vehicle several rows away. She stopped in her tracks and cursed in frustration.

"Grrrrrrrraahhhhh! Damnit!"

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

" _Ragi-tan, my Ashikabi will be handsome too, but he'll be tall and dark, and mysterious. And he will have tattoos and wear a leather jacket! He will be so cool all the other Sekirei will be jealous of how great my Ashikabi is."_

_Katsuragi smiled and watched Madoka's face eagerly describe the traits of her someday Ashikabi, a list Katsuragi had heard many times since joining Group 11. Then, past her blonde friend, she spotted someone walking towards the dorm room, easily seen through the clear, floor-to-ceiling, glass walls that made up all the dorms for the girls. "Look, Mado-chan! There's Yosuga-chan! She's back from her adjustment. Oh, look how tall she is now!"_

_Madoka stopped speaking and turned so quickly her blonde hair fanned out around her before settling on her shoulders. The little blonde Sekirei whimpered at the sight of her best friend and hugged her knees against her chest again, shaking her head and mumbling, "Oh no, no, no, they changed Yosu-tan, no, no…"_

_Katsuragi squeezed Madoka's shoulder in an effort to be comforting. It was a little shocking to see Yosuga the way she was now; tall, slender, the skin-tight stretch-shorts and half-tank-top the Administrators provided showing off lean, muscular limbs. Not bulky like 14 Chiyo and 16 Toyotama and 18 Ichiya, and not hard muscles like 10 Uzume liked to show off, either. Instead Yosuga had sleek, slim, legs and arms. You could see the muscles flex under her golden skin. And, of course, Yosuga now showed the curve of hip and breasts of a post-pubescent Sekirei, though her breasts were much smaller than any of the other Sekirei in Group 11 who had been through their Puberty Adjustment._

_All told, Katsuragi thought their dark haired friend looked like a hunter, like one of those big black cats in the nature programs on the television._

_Katsuragi ran over to the open doorway of the dorm room that Yosuga and Madoka shared and waved at the now-tall Yosuga. The black-haired Sekirei seemed to be having trouble walking, holding her forehead in one trembling hand and leaning against the glass walls of the dorm hall._

" _Yosu-chan? Are you okay?" Katsuragi approached the now-much-taller 44 Yosuga, concerned for her friend's obvious pain and distress._

_Yosuga's dark eyes found the now-much-shorter slender form of 86 Katsuragi, then Yosuga made an effort to smile before she answered, "Hello, Ragi-chan. I've got the worst headache. They said it would go away but so far it's so bad I can barely see. Can you help me to my bunk? Where is Mado-chan? Is she okay?"_

_Madoka ran past Katsuragi and threw her arms around Yosuga's bare legs, still crying. "Yes, I am here Yosu-tan! I am so happy to see you, I was so scared you would go away and never return!"_

_Katsuragi took Yosuga's hand, which had been steadying the taller girl against the wall, "This way, Yosu-chan, let's lay you down on your bunk and you should sleep. Maybe you will feel better after a nap."_

_Madoka took Yosuga's other hand and nodded silently, face streaked with tears as she looked up at the familiar yet now different features of her best friend._

_Before the mismatched trio of girls could travel the few meters to the dorm doorway, the hall speaker above them beeped for attention and then a female Administrator's dispassionate voice spoke. "86, report to the common room immediately for Adjustments."_

_Katsuragi stopped in her tracks, then looked up at the speaker and its attached camera and microphone before answering, "Yes ma'am."_

_The skinny little Sekirei girl then looked up at her friend Yosuga and then down at her friend Madoka, noticing Madoka's pretty, blue, eyes were filling with tears again and that Madoka's hand covered her trembling lips._

_Yosuga carefully knelt so she was looking Katsuragi in the eyes then hugged the now-scared little Sekirei. "It's okay, 'Ragi-chan. You'll be fine, and when you come back you'll be tall like me and you'll be able to make fun of the fact you will have bigger boobies than me."_

_Hugging Yosuga then turning and hugging Madoka, Katsuragi then nodded her head and tried to pretend to be brave. "Okay, I'll do that then, Yosu-chan. Bye, Mado-chan." Katsuragi hesitated then hugged both girls again, harder, whispering, "Thank you both for being my friends."_

_Yosuga remained kneeling there in the hallway, with Madoka holding onto her right arm, the two of them watching Katsuragi run towards the Common Room until the dirty-blonde hair of the other girl disappeared behind a corner finally._

_Yosuga slumped against the wall, no longer trying to hide how much pain she was in, now that Katsuragi was no longer there to be scared at the prospect of returning from Adjustments in such pain, herself. "Well, hopefully we will see her again soon, right, Mado-chan? Help me to our room, please? My head hurts so very badly, I don't think I can stand up again."_

" _Okay, Yosu-tan. Let us go on our hands and knees then. I will guide you and bring you water if you get thirsty and take care of you, I promise. I, I love you, Yosu-tan! Please never go away, please!"_

_Yosuga smiled in spite of the blinding headache she was suffering. "I love you too, Mado-chan. And I promise I'll try to not go away. But right now I need to lay down, or my head might split open from the pounding in it."_

_Madoka nodded seriously and then helped her best friend slowly crawl to her bunk, sparing a small bit of worry for their now-departed friend, 86 Katsuragi. The other girl had not been with Group 11 for long, maybe thirty sleeps, but she had been easy to get along with and Madoka thought the other blonde Sekirei might eventually be a truly close friend with her and Yosuga someday._

_Madoka could not know then that she would not see 86 Katsuragi again until years had passed and Madoka just happened to be walking past a downtown Shin Tokyo alleyway where Katsuragi was cornered by 16 Toyotama, then delivered up to her Ashikabi, Higa._

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

Gregory drove the Jeep towards his family's apartment, carefully going the speed limit, using his turn signals meticulously, and stopping fully at all red lights. In the passenger seat, Madoka sat with her legs pulled up against her chest, her arms hugging her legs and her forehead resting on her knees.

Not exactly a picture of happiness and contentment.

He could not pay attention to that right now; there was a crazy man in a high-collared-white-cape laughing on the 20cm LED monitor in the center of the Jeep's dash.

"Gregory-kun, you certainly are not the sort of fellow we had in mind when we put the Sekirei Plan in motion. A forty-year-old schoolteacher at Tokyo Metro High and an American? However, I cannot deny your courage; your saving dear number 37 from those who pursued her was inspiring! Everyone watching here was moved by your courage! No wonder she was drawn to you in spite of… well, in spite of everything."

The glasses-wearing-lunatic who had hijacked Gregory's Jeep dash monitor, grinned widely as he said this. _"Everyone watching here, indeed, you nutcase? Message received."_ Gregory avoided grinding his teeth, but only barely. He made an effort to put his professional face on and smile courteously towards the dash monitor. _"Treat him like Principal-sama likes to be treated, can't go wrong with that I don't think."_

"Thank you, sir. It is my great privilege and honor to not only be Madoka-chan's Ashikabi but to be given the chance to participate in the glorious Sekirei Plan."

"Yes! The Sekirei Plan!" The lunatic seemed excited that Gregory knew of it. "That is the name of the contest you are now a part of, Gregory-kun. I see number 37 has already informed you. I wonder if you understood? You seem enthusiastic, so unlike most of the other Ashikabi who have met their destined Sekirei thus far!"

Gregory glanced at the screen then returned his attention to the road. "Yes, of course, sir. Madoka-chan fights secretly against the other Sekirei and I am her partner, her Ashikabi."

"You understand quickly! Perfect, Gregory-kun! Now, remember, this is a top-secret project. Now that you know of it, you have an obligation to keep silent about it. And, Gregory-kun, do not underestimate how far MBI's reach is. It would be very unfortunate if we had to act against you and your family."

At this, Madoka raised her head and looked over at Gregory's face. Her protest was cut off by Gregory's hand on her leg, squeezing warningly.

Gregory carefully kept his features in what he thought of as his professional face and smiled. "Of course, President Minaka. Nothing less would be expected. I trust that MBI's legal department will take care of all the traffic citations this vehicle accumulated in tonight's excitement? So as to keep the Plan secret, of course, and to guarantee Madoka-chan's Ashikabi isn't lost to Shin Tokyo's legal system for the duration?"

Hirohito Minaka's eyeglasses caught the reflection of whatever camera lights were illuminating him and the white-haired man laughed again. "Oh, I _like_ you, Gregory-kun! I shall allow it; you need not worry about any repercussions from the authorities for your rescue of dear Number 37."

"Excellent, thank you, sir. Other than Madoka-chan needing replacements for her identification and her debit cards then I assume she and I are ready to start participating in the Sekirei Plan. Our intention to defeat all the others and be the last standing will never flag, I assure you sir."

Madoka's look of outrage and shock at this bizarre pronouncement from her Ashikabi was also cut off by Gregory's hand squeezing her thigh hard, again.

"You will find, Gregory-kun," Minaka smiled creepily as he leaned in towards the camera, "that everything will be waiting at your residence. Now, I am very busy so good luck to you, Gregory-kun and to you, number 37!"

The monitor returned to GPS navigation, which had been on the display before the President of MBI had suddenly appeared upon it. Gregory's hand squeezed Madoka's thigh again more gently then he focused on turning into the parking lot of the O'Donnell's apartment.

Sure enough, there was a black luxury car idling in front of the apartment. A large Japanese man in a tight fitting silk suit stood next to the sleek vehicle, holding a cardboard box with the number "37" clearly stamped onto the side.

"Mado-chan, that looks like your care package from MBI. Let's get it and start making our plans for how we will win the Sekirei Plan, eh?"

Madoka looked at Gregory as though she had never seen him before or as though he had grown a second head, his behavior not making any sense to the girl. Gregory turned to the left to face her and his left eyelid lowered in a slow wink.

"Ah, yes, of course, Gregory-kun. Let us do… that."

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

"It's eight goddamn o'clock, Greg! And not even a phone call? And when I tried to call you I got rolled to voice-mail? What the fuck, Greg? Where in the hell have you been?" Karen O'Donnell's voice was piercingly loud in the apartment, her anger clear to anyone within earshot.

"I told you, Karen! I was at the school late, you know how semester finals time is, and on the way home I stopped at a store and then came on home. I got caught up in a conversation with someone on the phone in the Jeep, but…"

"GPS showed the Jeep at some little grocery store not even near here, Greg. Why did you need to go there?"

"Mado-chan needed to stop for…"

"Mado-chan is it? Goddamnit Greg I've about had as much of…"

"Karen, please, please. I've got three hundred practice tests to grade before I can sleep and I'm going to be lucky to get three hours of sleep before class because of it! I told you I'm sorry I didn't call, but can you please just give me a break?"

"Don't talk over me, Greg!"

Mishi got up from the bed and shut the door, then used her foot to push a towel under the door to cut off what could still be heard. Looking at the towel appraisingly, she poked it with her toe a few more times to wedge it firmly under the door. The teen girl muttered, "I think I've had enough of listening to that. Could they be any ruder? They aren't the only people who live here, you know."

Glancing back at the bed, Mishi noted that her roomie of the last week was lying curled up and staring at the wall, already in the clothes she usually slept in and tucked under the sheet. Something was wrong, for sure, but Mishi was damned if she could figure out what.

"Mado?" Mishi sat on the edge of the bed, looking at her new friend worriedly. "You usually don't go to sleep before eating dinner... right?"

"Thank you Mishi but I am not hungry. Really I am just tired and want to sleep."

Mishi grimaced but pressed on, "Come on, Mado, what happened? Did… did something happen between you and Dad? Did he do something to upset you?"

Madoka's response to that question surprised and startled Mishi. Madoka looked… angry. Angry at the suggestion Mishi's Dad had done something? The pretty blonde raised herself up on her elbows to look at Mishi, her blue eyes more than a bit fierce, even intimidating, and her voice was sharper than Mishi had heard it before.

"No, Gregory did not do _anything_ wrong and he… he should _not be yelled at_." Madoka fell back to her pillow before continuing, "Please, Mishi, I am very tired, just let me sleep. Please."

Mishi held up her hands and acquiesced, "Okay, okay, I'm sorry for pressuring you, Mado. But if you need to talk to someone I'm here, okay? We're friends, right? You can talk to your friends about anything, okay?"

"Yes. Okay. And I hope we are friends, Mishi." Madoka shut her eyes and turned her head away. "If you could turn off the light and just play soft music so we cannot hear… her yelling, then I would be very grateful."

"Okay, Mado. Get some sleep, we'll talk tomorrow."

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

It was after midnight; Kakizaki was not used to meeting with his boss so late. Normally Kakizaki would be in the midst of his entertainments by now but tonight Sekirei 86 had returned late with a story of failure to capture an unnamed Sekirei in the west of the city. Higa Izumi had called Kakizaki to his penthouse office, no doubt for an explanation.

"I assure you, Higa-sama, I will inflict whatever is necessary to motivate this worthless number 86 to make whatever effort…"

"Kakizaki," Higa not only spoke over his assistant but also turned to scowl at him from his seat across the luxurious desk that graced the office, "it was not 86 who failed to provide intelligence on where any additional Sekirei would be released. That it found any unwinged Sekirei at all in a metropolis that counts over nineteen million inhabitants rather strongly implies that these Sekirei have some way to sense each other, even if they are not able to reliably use this ability for our benefit. To be clear, I hold _you_ responsible for our lack of intelligence and the poor progress that lack is causing, not number 86."

Kakizaki broke out in a cold sweat, his tailored high-collared shirt suddenly feeling tight around his neck. He answered quickly, projecting confidence, "Of course, Higa-sama. I will make additional efforts to motivate number 22 then…"

"Again, you fail to understand." Higa spoke over Kakizaki again. The assistant paled at how far out of the grace of his superior he seemed to have fallen, all without realizing. "If caning and raping number 22 was going to make her work more effectively then it would have already done so. I begin to suspect that you are too focused on your entertainments and _not_ focused on effectively motivating our tools." Higa turned to look out of the office windows, which provided an unparalleled view of eastern Shin Tokyo.

Higa Izumi silenced Kakizaki's protests with a glance then returned to his study of the late-night technopolis sprawled out below his office. After letting his assistant stew in silence for a precise thirty seconds, Higa continued, "Motivating 22 will go forward more subtly, Kakizaki. You will take 86 and do with her whatever you wish; she will assume this is for her failure in capturing whatever Sekirei it was in the west tonight. Make sure her punishment is imaginative. Possibly involve some of our new recruits in Special Security; those Australian men would likely do. Instead of having 16 there to insure 86's cooperation you will use 22 for this purpose."

At this Kakizaki frowned in puzzlement, "Number 22? If 86 is receiving discipline instead of 22 what does that…"

Higa yet again spoke over his increasingly disappointing secretary, "In treating 86 more severely than 22 has been treated thus far _and_ doing so as 22 observes, your intelligent servant will get the message, I assure you. Number 22's fear of being treated in the same manner as 86 will motivate her far more effectively than having her beaten and gang-raped, herself, Kakizaki."

Kakizaki bowed deeply, "It will be exactly as you say, Higa-sama."

As Kakizaki made to leave the office, Higa reminded him, "If nothing else, you must find out for me when number 18, called Ichiya, will be released. We require her to team with 16 if we are ever going to face MBI's resources."

"Of course, Higa-sama."

Kakizaki took the elevator to the special, secure, rooms where the Sekirei were kept and where they were… motivated. Kakizaki was not happy that Higa was interfering with his own Sekirei, number 22, but at least he had been given permission to go further than ever before in his treatment of number 86. While abusing number 22 _was_ entertaining, she was noticeably older than 86; wider of hip and possessing much larger breasts. Breaking her reserve was a challenge, but she just wasn't as physically appealing as the lithe, youthful, and _formerly_ innocent, number 86.

At least the disfavor of his superior was not a complete disaster, yet. There was still time to salvage this situation.

And there was still time to enjoy the sweetness of 86's treatment tonight; just the idea of the somber, blue-eyed, blonde being ill-treated by a few of the Special Security gorillas put a genuine smile on Kakizaki's face. He would bring two of the huge, muscular, Special Security agents with him tonight, for the task of introducing 86 to this new level of punishment for falling short of expectations. Even numbers always worked out best for these sorts of things as Kakizaki had learned through observation, and the threat of additional numbers _next_ time could be held over 86 to provide even more motivation.

Sweetness indeed.

_**The End of Book One** _

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

* * *

From the Notebooks of Gregory O'Donnell

**_Terminology_ **

**Winging** – Through a kiss, traditionally, according to Madoka, but also appears to be doable via other contact between an unwinged Sekirei and an Ashikabi. Just any physical contact will not necessarily produce the life-long bonding that the winging represents. An intimate act such as kissing or other invasive physical act by an Ashikabi to a Sekirei seems required.

At the moment of the Winging, the Ashikabi/Sekirei psychic bond is established. The Sekirei manifests a large, radiant, pair of wings from high on the back, around the shoulder blades. Before these intangible 'wings' fade, a glowing symbol in the shape of a stylized bird, yin/yang sign, and four tomoe, appears as well above and behind the Sekirei and settles onto their back, imprinting itself in a visible and permanent manner, like a tattoo. See the attached illustration.  
Obviously, the presence of the yin/yang indicates a non-alien origin for at least some part of this manifestation of metapsychic power. The bird is, no doubt, symbolic of the avian ancestry the Sekirei claim (in contradiction to all evidence that they are profoundly mammalian).

Madoka says it is common knowledge among the Sekirei that once an Ashikabi wings a Sekirei they are bound together as mates for life, nothing can break this bond. She is sadly unable to source this "common knowledge" though, just as she cannot explain other, scattered, Sekirei traditions and myths.

The Sekirei have a traditional phrase they invoke after they are winged by their Ashikabi: "forever and ever". This phrase emphasizes the permanent nature of this bond. Like all of the traditions and myths the Sekirei have it is difficult to determine the origin of this phrase. It could be from their homeworld, it could be something MBI invented, or any of a dozen other explanations. Unless we can interview Sekirei 01 or review any computer records in the Sekirei ship it is unlikely we will know the answer to that question.

Winging provides the Sekirei with additional abilities, both a permanent across the board increase in their known powers and some super-version of their powers that is unlocked using a chant, called a Norito (an obscure Japanese word for a formal sort of Shinto prayer according to my more traditional Japanese dictionaries, so quite likely not an alien word for this power-activating chant).

It may also be required for a Sekirei to be winged to their Ashikabi before they can reproduce, though Madoka was less clear on this point.  
There is definitely a psychic connection forged between the Ashikabi and the Sekirei. After bonding with Madoka under circumstances that were less than ideal, even I was able to get a sense of her emotional state that was far more immediate than guessing based on her demeanor and words. One would speculate that this would make it difficult for Ashikabi and Sekirei to deceive each other, for better and for worse. My perception of Madoka's emotions, even her physical location, was immediately far beyond what normal senses could explain. The limits of this 'sense' needs to be tested and quantified.  
What other effects the bond might have on Sekirei and Ashikabi also needs to be investigated and documented.

MBI has stressed to the Sekirei that the first and by far most important priority in the Sekirei Plan is for the Sekirei to find an Ashikabi. Most Sekirei feel there is one 'fated' Ashikabi for them though most acknowledge they may not be lucky enough to find that Ashikabi. This is similar to human girls' insistence that there is 'the one' perfect Prince Charming out there for them, as well.

* * *

_**On Sekirei Alienness** _

The question as to whether, and to what degree, the Sekirei are alien is at once critical, and yet, unimportant. For our purposes, we will refer to the Sekirei as the 108 beings who were recovered from the crashed space ship on Kamakura Island by Hiroto Minaka and company. As well, hypothetical other ships in the same colonization fleet which may have landed on Earth in earlier ages would contain Sekirei, though their descendants would likely be Terran Human/Sekirei hybrids rather than the 108 attempting to keep to themselves and breed true, based on what little we know about the supposed mission of integration with the local dominant intelligent life, Terran Humans.

The species of intelligent life which built the ships and stocked them with the 108 transport tanks and their biological cargo will not be called "Sekirei", as there is good reason to consider them a different species entirely (ie, unable to breed with Earth humans, likely to have a completely different evolution, chemistry, and morphology from Earth humans). We will refer to the originators of the colonization effort as the "Kouten" until we have better information as to what they prefer to be called.

What we know about the Sekirei, at least second hand:

They can breed with Terran Humans. De facto this means they are the same species, homo sapiens. As it is extremely unlikely that homo sapiens evolved on a second world, with no common ancestor between the two species, we have to look for other explanations for the fact that the Sekirei are homo sapiens.

They have abilities that are not commonly demonstrated by Terran Humans. Psychokinesis, mindspeech, farsight, these abilities may be latent in some Terran Humans but in the Sekirei they seem common and operant. This marks them as distinct from Terran Humans.

The Sekirei are all notably not only _healthy_ examples of homo sapiens, but they are specifically _beautiful_ to the eyes of Earth humans. As standards of beauty vary based on culture and time period (but remaining within a fairly narrow range, surprisingly), one speculates that each ship contained different ethnicities of Earth humans, attractive to whichever part of the globe they were targeted towards. Alternatively, the Sekirei themselves change based on the standards they perceive in the Earth humans they encounter (see "Sekirei Plasticity Theory", later in this Notebook). The beauty of the Sekirei is an important data point, even a critical point, in our guesses about the nature and origin of their bodies.

Anyone who does any serious study in the fields of exobiology or astrobiology rapidly comes to the conclusion that while there may indeed be intelligent life in this universe which has appeared and evolved completely separately from what has occurred on Earth, the vastness of space and the great age of the universe implies that the odds of encountering any such truly alien intelligent life by mankind is incredibly minute.

The entire history of humankind, from Neanderthal to homo sapiens, is but a blink of an eye in the age of the Milky Way Galaxy, much less the universe itself. That two species might evolve, completely separately on worlds separated by interstellar space and they just happen to do so close enough that they might encounter each other at some point during a simultaneous blink of an eye in time is almost laughably unlikely.

Note, we are speaking of life from a _completely separate_ world, one where life evolved from microbial beginnings as it has, clearly, on Earth, and without any contamination possible from Earth's native life due to interstellar space. If one discovers living microbes on Mars we have not found proof that life may evolve independently of Earth. We have only discovered what is, more likely, cross contamination from Earth to Mars, by hardy microbial life.

But intelligent life from another star system entirely?

Assuming such incredible odds were overcome, that in the blink of an eye that makes up all of mankind's history on Earth and in the separate blink of an eye that makes up all of (for instance) Kouten's history on their world, that these two blinks are simultaneous and that the two star systems are close enough in the great vastness of our galaxy, much less the universe, let us look at what would be likely even if such amazingly small odds as those were overcome by chance.

95% of life on Earth is built upon six elements; carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulphur (called CHNOPS). These six elements are the building blocks of virtually all life on Earth, indicating that almost all life on Earth has a common antediluvian ancestor.

The other 5% of life on Earth are based on other elements. These terran life forms are those that did not come from the same ancient single-celled ancestor from which the other 95% evolved. That common single-celled ancestor for the 95%, built upon the six elements listed above, was present some 3.5 billion years ago on this planet. The other 5%, those "alien" life forms that live among us on Earth, are _still_ more closely related to me and you than _any_ life that developed on a hypothetical world of Kouten.

Even among the 95% of life on Earth that shares a common background in the warm seas of 3.5 billion years ago, there is vast diversity. On Earth there is an estimated 5,490 species of mammals. All 5,490 of those species are our incredibly close relatives, compared to the rest of life on Earth. There are 9,998 species of birds. 31,300 species of fish. The 63,649 species of vertebrates, including homo sapiens, on Earth are all practically identical to each other, compared to the other forms of life which make up that 95% which is based on the six elements above. Homo Sapiens is incredibly closely related to sea bass, compared to how close we are related to any of the 1,305,250 invertebrate species on Earth, for example.

Much less the 1.5 million species of fungi.

Earth humans are far, _far_ , more closely related, in every way possible, to those 1.5 million different species of fungi than we are to the 5% of life on this world which is based on chemical formations other than carbon/hydrogen/nitrogen/oxygen/phosphorous/sulphur. We have common ancestry to that 95%, including the fungi, whereas the 5% of truly 'other' life on Earth formed from completely different elements we have nothing in common with at all.

Needless to say that 5% makes up some of the strangest and most 'weird' life on this planet. Even the 95% we are related to make for some truly bizarre and 'different' forms of life. Including life which evolved in radian form, instead of bilateral form (which is most common).

So the life which evolved on Kouten would, we must assume, be just as varied as that on Earth. There is no evidence that the CHNOPS elements are universally superior for the construction of life, only that those were the elements which were most successful here on Earth in our own unique environment and circumstances. There's as much chance Kouten is based around silicon instead of carbon and live in liquid nitrogen seas, as anything else.

Having already handwaved the vast odds against homo sapiens of Earth and Kouten life existing at the same time period and close enough in physical distance to actually come into contact with each other, next we have to consider the odds of the form of life on both worlds being very different from each other. We already know that we, homo sapiens, have a far closer relationship to radially symmetrical animals such as jellyfish than we would have to _any_ life which evolved, separately from Earth, on Kouten.

Do you look at a jellyfish and feel kinship or a connection? Do you see a reproduction partner? Odds are you do not. One… certainly hopes you do not.

And yet you are _incredibly_ closer in relation to that radial life form than you are to _any_ life on Kouten.

That the Sekirei appear to have a kinship and a connection with Terran Humans, specifically appearing as _attractive reproduction partners_ to Earth's humans, indicates they _must_ have been made for that purpose. There is almost no chance at all that the form and chemistry of their bodies here on Earth is the same as that of the originator species on Kouten, if any such exists in fact.

Science fiction aside, anyone who seriously proposes such simultaneous parallel evolution of life forms with no common ancestor on worlds separated by interstellar space simply does not understand the factors involved in such a proposition.

We can come to some tentative hypothesis concerning the Sekirei, just from what humankind _does_ know about exobiology, evolution, and morphology.

The Sekirei are not the Kouten, as far as their biology is concerned.

The Sekirei were likely specifically designed by the Kouten for their mission to integrate with Earth's dominant intelligent life, homo sapiens. And yes, I find the therefore implied level of technology more terrifying than the Kouten's demonstrated ability to cross interstellar space.

Sekirei myths about themselves having avian ancestry may be based in fact, but it would be more likely the _Kouten_ themselves being avian or from avian descent than the _Sekirei_.

There may be some part of the Kouten that was included in the Sekirei. The 'tama core' or metapsychic profile or the 'soul' or whatever term one wishes to use for the demonstrable (with the Sekirei at least) aspect of their intelligence and being which exists separately from the meat of their bodies and brains, may well be this Kouten life element which is a part of the Sekirei. Does this Kouten life aspect breed true from Sekirei to Sekirei/Human hybrid? Hints indicate it does, though the degree of operancy or latency seems to depend on the percentage of Sekirei ancestry.

At some point, I hope to have the opportunity to examine whatever records MBI recovered from Kamakura Island. Or, even less likely but more desirably, personally examine the remnant of the crashed ship at Kamakura myself.

If the opportunity ever arises to find and speak to the Sekirei 01, the one adult Sekirei aboard the crashed ship, the questions about the native life on Kouten will be at the top of my list of inquiries.

o.0.O.0.o

o.0.O.0.o

* * *

Started Sep 28 2014  
Completed Oct 5 2014  
Originally Posted May 7 2015


End file.
